12b Transmutation of Time Pt 2 A Hole In Time
by Margaret Price
Summary: Set one year after the conclusion of part 1, this story sees the return of most of the players in that story...with some surprising additions. 5th & 7th Doctors.
1. Can You Manage?

The Transmutation Of Time - Part 2 © 2003 -- A Hole In Time © 1993 Margaret Price

This story is set one yearafter the conclusion of "The Will of Ormril,"bringing together all of the players in that story...and then some.It is an overlapping 5th and 7th Doctor story taken out of time.

For series chronology, it is after "Resurrection of the Daleks" for the 5th Doctor and "Survival" for the 7th Doctor.

**

* * *

**

THE TRANSMUTATION OF TIME

PART TWO

**A HOLE IN TIME**

**  
One Year Later**

**  
****Chapter One**

"**Can You Manage?"**

Inside the TARDIS control room, the Doctor stood scowling down at the control console, his usually bright and cheerful face sullen. He had always found parting company with his com­pan­ions difficult, even at the best of times, but his most recent parting had been especially hard. Af­ter encountering the Daleks on Earth Tegan announced that she'd had enough of the death and destruction that always seemed to follow in the Time Lord's wake and stayed behind. Feeling partly responsible for her disillusionment, the Doctor had been brooding ever since.

Turlough came through the inner door, stopping dead when he saw the Doctor was still sulk­ing. Sighing heavily, he wondered what might be going on inside the Time Lord's mercurial mind. His moods were next to impossible to gauge. One minute he would be so deep in thought as to be practically catatonic and the next he would be dashing out the door into the most ap­palling danger.

The Doctor looked up and smiled, attempting to raise his own spirits with a show of cheerful­ness. "Well? Have you decided where you want to go?"

Turlough shook his head. "I haven't given it much thought, actually. I came to tell you…" his voice trailed off when he thought he saw the Doctor waver on his feet. "Are you alright?"

Just as puzzled as his companion, the Doctor leaned heavily against the console. "I'm fine. Just a bit dizzy, that's all." Seeing the young man was less than convinced, he admitted, "Well, actually, I haven't felt quite myself since that last trip down the Dalek's time corridor."

Just the fact that the Doctor would admit to feeling even slightly off had Turlough worried. "Perhaps you should lie down for a while. You know you haven't slept since—"

"No, no, no, I'm fine," the Doctor said, waving a hand in the air. "Stop making such a—" His knees suddenly gave way, forcing him to grab the console to keep from falling. His companion was beside him immediately. Looking him in the eye, he said mildly, "Perhaps I should lie down for a while."

With Turlough to steady him, the Doctor slowly made his way from the console room into the maze of corridors within the impossibly large time machine. He intended on going to his own room, but he continued to weaken visibly with each step, forcing Turlough to steer him into one of the unoccupied rooms in the living area. He eased the exhausted Time Lord down onto the bed, helping him off with his coat.

"I don't understand what's wrong with me," the Doctor admitted dazedly. "I'm so tired. No, that's wrong, not tired. Drained."

"I think you need a doctor," Turlough remarked, receiving a sideways glance in reply. "I'm not joking, Doctor! You need help!" He was expecting the usual argument and was astonished when the Time Lord nodded his agreement.

"You'll need to change course," the Doctor said as he sank wearily back onto the bed. "Now let's see, where are we…?" he muttered. A moment later he was rattling off a set of coordinates that would take them to the nearest medical station.

Turlough nodded and turned to leave, stopping when the Doctor asked, "Do you think you can manage on your own?"

His companion gave him a wry smile. "I was about to ask you the same thing."

* * *

Turlough hurriedly entered the coordinates, checking them over once before hurrying back to the Doctor. Even in this brief absence it was obvious his condition was deterio­rating rapidly. He had gone very pale and was weakening steadily, his breathing having become slightly labored. As seri­ous as this was, it was not nearly so worrying as the fact that his hearts seemed to be beating out of synch. 

It was obvious the Doctor would not be going anywhere for a while and Turlough decided to put him to bed properly. The Doctor did his best to assist as his companion changed his clothes, but found he had almost no strength left and muttered something in an apologetic tone as the blan­kets were pulled over him.

Within a few minutes the Time Lord was out cold. Whether he simply fell asleep or lost con­sciousness, Turlough could not tell. Heaving a resigned sigh, the young man took a seat beside the bed and leaned back. He was at a complete loss as to what to do next and sat staring into space. The TARDIS suddenly gave a violent shudder and Turlough cursed under his breath, thinking he had either programmed the computer wrong, or the Doctor had given him the wrong coor­dinates. He got as far as the door before another violent lurch threw him into the wall in the cor­ridor and then down to the floor.

To Turlough's horror, the walls started to distort and then everything seemed to spin. His last thoughts before passing out were of the irony of the situation. While a servant of the Black Guardian, he had tried—and failed—several times to kill the Doctor. Now he actually seemed to have succeeded without even trying.


	2. Temporal Distortion

**ChapterTwo**

**Temporal Distortion**

Elsewhere in the seemingly endless expanse of space, a small shuttlecraft sped on its way to a distant rendezvous, its passengers all members of the elite aristocracy of the Alterran Em­pire, all of whom were friends of the Doctor's. They included his former traveling companion, Jason Krystovan, who was now the King of his home planet of Tel-Shye and whose rise to power had been through what he considered an ap­palling technicality in the acts of succession. With him on his present journey were his eldest son, Crown Prince Juris, and his ward, Lady Asta, whose very existence could be traced directly back to the monarch's last encounter with the Doctor just one year earlier. Since her transformation into physical being she had exhibited no hints of her dark and violent origins, being instead the very model of the nonviolent Alterran she now was.

In spite of the miraculous change, and for reasons he could not explain himself, King Jason had grown distrustful of his ward. Eventually he stopped trying to mask his feelings, tolerating her presence only because he had taken it upon himself to act as her legal guardian.

The tension of the long journey was only heightened when something suddenly buffeted the small ship sending it spinning wildly out of control. It took several minutes for the pilot to re­gain control and stabilize the ship. The instant this was done the King was out of his seat and at the doorway to the flight deck.

"What the hell did we just hit?" he demanded, grabbing the bulkhead as the ship shuddered again. The wall distorted in his hand and he blanched visibly, knowing at once what was hap­pening.

The Captain exchanged glances with his navigator, irritated by the fact that someone would come barging into his sanctum at a time like this. He controlled his annoyance with effort, re­minding himself that his passengers were all high-ranking and very powerful individuals. Throwing a quick glance at the man at door, he said, "Just a bit of space turbulence, your High­ness, nothing to worry about. You can tell the King—"

"I _am_ the King," Jason informed sharply as he came onto the flight deck. "And that was no space turbulence, either. It's a temporal distortion if ever I felt one."

The pilot gave the Alterran a more careful look and cursed under his breath. Despite the fact that the King was centuries older than anyone onboard, he still looked as if he were in his thir­ties; the twenty-year-old Crown Prince looking more like his younger brother than his son.

"Forgive me, your Majesty, I—"

"Never mind the protocol," the monarch snapped impatiently. "What's going on with the in­struments?"

"I don't know. I've never encountered a temporal distortion before."

To the Captain's astonishment, the Alterran dropped into the unoccupied copilot's seat and scrutinized the readings. "Well, I have," he said quickly, "and I can tell you this. If you don't land this thing—and soon—we'll be shaken to pieces."

* * *

Inside the TARDIS control room, the Doctor—_another_ Doctor—stood scowling down at the control console. This Doctor was a future version of the tall, fair-haired young man who had taken ill so mysteriously. His seventh incarnation. He was dark-haired, smaller in stat­ure, older in appearance, and, of course, in fact.

The violent shuddering that had thrown Turlough to the floor and jarred the occupants of the small spaceship had continued to ripple through the fabric of time, affecting this Doctor's TARDIS at the other end. He did not know this to be the cause as yet and was going from panel to panel trying to find the problem. His current companion, Ace, stood leaning against the wall near the inner door watching him with a distinct air of suspicion. She was trying to decide if he were really worried or just trying to hide the fact that he was involving her in another mission without letting her know what was going on.

"I'll have to materialize so I can trace the fault," the Time Lord said at last.

"Is it really bad?" Ace asked, grabbing the wall as the time machine shook again.

"I don't know. Probably not. But it's always best to make sure." Activating the scanner, the Doctor saw a small planet in the distance. "That should do nicely," he grinned. His hands hov­ered indecisively over the console a moment before he finally operated the controls. "Anyway," he added cheerily, "we wouldn't what to hit anything, now would we?"

The TARDIS materialized with an uncharacteristic jolt in a small clearing at the edge of a densely wooded area. A full second later it shook violently again. This second unexpected spasm threw the Doctor and his companion to the control room floor.

"Now _that_ shouldn't've happened," the bewildered Time Lord said as he picked himself up off the floor.

"Did we hit something?" Ace asked shakily. "Or did something hit us?"

Not knowing the answer himself, the Doctor went straight to the instruments, only to find that nothing registered. Completely baffled, he activated the scanner, getting nothing but static. Muttering to himself about the impossibility of the situation, he proceeded to crawl under the console.

A few metres away, and now inside the same TARDIS, Turlough was picking himself up off of the floor. He was amazed and delighted to find himself still in one piece and staggered to the console room to see what had gone wrong. He opened the door and received the shock of his life when he came face to face with the equally astonished Ace. The two stood staring at one another a mo­ment before Ace finally hissed, "Professor!"


	3. Overlap

**Chapter Three**

**Overlap**

The Doctor grunted an unintelligible reply and continued with his work.

Not quite believing what he was seeing, Turlough followed Ace's nervous glance, going cau­tiously over to the central control console where, to his horror, he saw a pair of feet protruding from beneath.

"Professor!" Ace hissed again.

Finding his voice at last, Turlough demanded, "What do you think you're doing under there?"

Startled by the unexpected male voice, the Doctor came out from under the console and stared up at the vexed young man a moment before breaking into a broad smile. "Great Gallifrey, Turlough!" he gasped. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"What am _I_ doing here?" Turlough was incredulous. "What are you—?" He broke off as the Time Lord's greeting sank in, scowling down at the strange little man beneath the console. "How do you know my name?"

"Ah, you may well ask," the intruder grinned as he got to his feet. "I have the advantage of time, you see."

"No, I don't see," the young man replied acidly.

"Neither do I," Ace injected. "Doctor, do you actually know him?"

The Time Lord nodded. "Oh, yes. We're old friends, aren't we, Turlough?"

Turlough wasn't listening. He was too busy trying to absorb what Ace had just said. "_Doctor?_" he gasped unbelievingly, throwing a quick glance back towards the inner door before looking the Doctor up and down again. "But you're not…" His voice trailed off and his eyes grew wide as he realized what must have happened. Turning sharply back to the inner door, his body seemed to sag. "Oh no, I have to sit down," he muttered, a hand to his head. "We must've crossed time streams. That's what caused the tempo­ral disturbance." He sank slowly into a nearby chair, his mind reeling with the possible implica­tions of the present situation.

"Ah! Temporal disturbance. Of course, I should've known," the Doctor clucked, glancing over at the console. "That would explain why all the systems are off-line." He looked over at his current, and now very confused companion, seeing her glaring angrily back at him. "Oh dear, oh dear, I am slipping. Ace, this is Turlough. Turlough, Ace."

Ace ignored the introduction. "Doctor, what's going on?"

"Well…it's a bit complicated," the Doctor sighed as he started to circle the console.

"You'd better tell her slowly and in words of one or two syllables, Doctor," Turlough in­jected dazedly.

"You keep out of this!" Ace snapped angrily.

"Gladly," Turlough snorted as he got to his feet. "I need to see if the Doctor—_my_ Doctor—is still where I left him."

"What?" the Time Lord called from across the room. "You weren't on the planet's surface during the distortion?"

"No, I was in the TARDIS with the Doctor…the other Doctor. You know what I mean. The one I—" Turlough sighed heavily. He knew the Time Lord was following him, but he was con­fusing himself. "Anyway, just before the temporal disturbance hit, he…well, he collapsed."

"And you were in the TARDIS?"

"Yes. In vortex."

The Doctor's face darkened considerably. "The TARDIS must've materialized inside itself," he said to himself before asking, "So, it's just the two of you, then?"

"Yes. Well…not unless you count Kamelion."

"Kamelion!" the Doctor gasped. He had forgotten about the shape shifting robot he had been forced to destroy on Sarn. Then again, now that he thought about it, he had parted company with Turlough on Sarn as well.

"Not that he'll be much good now," Turlough was saying. "He blew a fuse or something just before your other self collapsed."

Ace was now completely lost. "Doctor, what is he talking about? What other self?"

The Doctor exchanged a dark look with his former companion and sighed heavily. "Lead on, Turlough," he said in a theatrical tone. "I'll try to explain on the way."

* * *

Turlough was relieved to find _his_ Doctor exactly where he had left him, sleeping peace­fully and apparently unaffected by the TARDIS's recent upheaval. As the young man crossed to the bed­side, he was appalled to see the Doctor's body seemed to blur, looking like the same im­age su­perimposed a dozen times over. He put his hand on the Time Lord's shoulder and was re­lieved when he returned to a single solid image. "Doctor," he said, gently shaking him. "Doctor, can you hear me?"

The Doctor moaned softly, his eyes fluttering open a crack. "Turlough…?" he said weakly, struggling to focus on the boy's concerned face. Touching the hand on his shoulder, he said fear­fully, "Turlough, we've got to get out of here. I saw it. It's out there!"

"What is?"

"A hole in Time. Enormous. Terrifying. We must get to the TARDIS!"

"Doctor, you were dreaming," Turlough said reassuringly.

"No!" the Time Lord cried, grabbing his companion by the arm. "Turlough, I _saw_ it. A tear in the fabric of Time itself. I was being…dragged into it." His strength suddenly seemed to fail him and he fell back and closed his eyes. "We must...get to the TARDIS. It's the…only protec­tion. It _must_ be closed."

Trying not to let his growing apprehension work its way into his voice, Turlough said sooth­ingly, "Doctor, you were having a nightmare. You're already in the TARDIS. See? You're per­fectly safe here."

The Doctor struggled to comprehend, looking at his companion and then at his surroundings. Sighing heavily, he said at last, "I must be sicker than I thought. You're right, of course. I…I must've been…dreaming." By now he was completely drained and settled back in bed. "We'll be safe in the TARDIS," he muttered as he drifted off to sleep.

An extremely worried Turlough turned to Ace and her Doctor, who were standing in the door­way. "I don't understand it. He's not sick. He just doesn't seem to have any energy. And now he's body's going out of synch. I don't know what to do."

In a quiet, almost fearful tone, the Doctor at the door replied, "Neither do I."

Ace's mouth dropped open in amazement. The Doctor had tried to explain the situation, but she was still having difficulty grasping it. How could the tall, fair-haired young man in the bed also be the smaller, darker individual who stood beside her?

"Hang on a minute, Professor," she interrupted. "You say that that's you over there, right? In a kind of…past life?"

"That's one way of putting it, yes."

"Then _why_ don't you know what to do? If this already happened to you, then you _must_ know what we did."

While this sounded logical enough, the Doctor pointed out that there were two major prob­lems. First, the crossing of one's own time stream was a very tricky business and had a tendency to leave memory gaps. It was also against the Time Laws, but he chose to keep this point to him­self. The second point was that his other self was hardly in any condition to be recalling any­thing.

"I think I'd better try and find some help," Turlough suggested practically. "We were sup­posed to be on course for a medical station, but who knows where we are now."

The Doctor nodded. "An excellent idea, Turlough. But I shall go, and I want you both to stay put until I get back. Alright? Good." Before either of his companions could respond, he vanished through the door.


	4. Forced Landing

**Chapter Four**

**Forced Landing**

After fighting turbulence most of the way, the small shuttle craft managed to land on the planet's surface with minimal damage to itself or its passengers. The Captain freely admitted this to be due solely to King Jason's piloting skills and not his own.

"Do you think you can repair the damage?" the King asked as the pilot and his navigator went over the ship's engines. The Captain informed him that the damage was not extensive and he would probably be able to have the ship space worthy within two days.

"I'll leave you to it, then," Jason called back and strode back into the ship, relaying the pi­lot's findings before announcing that he was going to see if there were any towns or villages nearby. The instruments had all been affected by the temporal disturbance, yielding nothing but static and he had been too busy trying to land rather than crash to pay attention to such details on their arrival.

"No, Father," Juris objected, "you shouldn't go off on your own. I'll go."

"I'm not that old yet," the monarch replied sharply. "And I've a lot more experience doing this sort of thing than you do. I'll just have a quick recce and be back before you know it."

Lady Asta listened to this exchange in silence. What had begun as a relationship of kindness and understanding had deteriorated to the point where she actually avoided speaking to her guardian, and he to her. She had been filled with a sense of foreboding the moment they en­countered the turbulence, and she had originally discounted it as being the strain of the journey. Now she was uncertain what it was. She was a very powerful and highly trained telepath now, but had been unable to pinpoint the source of her ill ease. Something she would have been able to do were it simply tension from her fellow passengers.

As the King prepared to leave, Asta knew she had to tell him what she felt, despite the fact that he usually scoffed at her warnings. "Majesty, wait!" she called, watching as he stiff­ened dra­mati­cally before turning back to her.

"Yes?" he said coldly.

"Please, be careful. There's danger."

Jason's eyes narrowed suspiciously, but there was something in her voice that put him on his guard. "What kind of danger? Where?" he asked, his voice having lost its accusing edge.

His ward shook her head. "I don't know. It's just a…a feeling I have. I can't explain it. I just …I thought you should know."

King Jason turned his gaze from Asta to his son and back, surprising them both when he in­clined his head and thanked her before departing.

* * *

While Ace's Doctor was forced to trudge slowly through the undergrowth in search of civiliza­tion, Jason was able to take a more expedient form of transportation, transmuting into an eagle and taking to the air. He soared for several miles in one direction, seeing what appeared to be an ancient ruined city. His curiosity piqued, he dropped from the sky for a closer look. From this vantage point it was obvious the buildings had lost their battle with the surrounding vegetation a long time ago. He landed and returned to his human form, looking around the apparently deserted city.

"No help here, that's for sure," the Alterran muttered as he walked a short distance in the cen­ter of the street. He entered the nearest storefront and stopped dead in his tracks. It was in pristine condition, as though the owners had shut down for the night and never returned.

"Now that's odd," he observed, looking around in bewilderment. Asta's warning returned to mind and he wondered if some catastrophe had occurred that she had picked up. Where were all the people? If they had died in a war, the buildings would have been destroyed, either by bombs or looters. The Alterran had seen his fair share of natural disasters, and he knew they always brought out the best—and worse—in people. "Not a natural disaster, then," he concluded.

Jason checked several other buildings, finding them all in similar condition. _Was this one of those pre-fabricated colonies? Built and forgotten?_

"Well, we'll get no help here," Jason concluded as he returned to the street and took to the air once more. He went in the opposite direction, following what seemed to be winding road, or what was left of one. At the top of a small hill he saw an open green area that may have at one time been a park. To his utter aston­ishment, he saw the familiar, if incongruous, shape of a police telephone box sitting to one side of the clearing.

Jason landed and returned to his human form, but not that of the King. Instead he adopted his casual dress of blue jeans, brightly colored shirt and sneakers. He went hesitantly to the TARDIS door and was startled when it swung open when he touched it. "Oh great," he moaned, not liking the implications of this at all. "Doctor?" he called as he went in, finding the console room empty. Puzzled, he looked around in bewilder­ment. _It isn't like the Doctor to go off and leave the TARDIS unlocked_. He crossed to the console, seeing all the systems were off-line. Asta's warning returned to mind a second time, sending a chill down his spine. Perhaps there was something to it after all. First the city was deserted, and now the TARDIS was also.

Jason cautiously opened the inner door and looked down the empty corridor. He threw a quick glance back into the console room then back down the corridor. He decided to go for broke and called out loudly, "Hello! Anybody home?"


	5. Another Intruder

**Chapter Five**

**Another Intruder**

The Alterran's shout echoed down the corridors, causing Ace and Turlough to exchange a horri­fied look. "The Doctor must've left the door open!" Turlough hissed.

The voice called again and Ace got to her feet. "Right. Let's go see who it is, then."

Turlough threw a concerned look in his Doctor's direction before following after her. "I just hope it isn't another one of him," he said darkly. "I don't think I could handle them all at once again."

Ace gave him a puzzled look. "Again?"

"Never mind," the young man muttered, waving a hand in the air. He had been trying to trans­late what Ace's Doctor had told her, but even he was having difficulty grasping all of it. While they both understood the concept of moving forward and backward in time, the current situation was complicated by the fact that time seemed to be overlapping itself. Had Ace gone back in time, or had Turlough gone forward? The voice of the intruder seemed a blessing in dis­guise. They both knew what to do about him.

Ace glanced out the door, motioning Turlough to go one way while she went the other, the plan obviously being for them to meet where the corridors joined further on ahead thus taking the newcomer by surprise. What they did not know was their intruder knew the TARDIS even better than they did and had gone in an entirely different direction.

While the Doctor's companions were looking for him, Jason was looking for them, or at least someone, and had gone through one door after another to avoid several lengthy and redundant corridors. Within minutes he was standing in the doorway of the room in which the Doctor had been left very much alone. For a moment he could not quite believe what he was seeing and stared in shock at the pale figure upon the bed. "Asta, what do you really know about all this?" he muttered.

The Doctor's body went out of synch again, bringing Jason out of his trance and to his side instantly. The Alterran sat down on the bed and examined the Time Lord with the care of the trained Healer he had been before his rise to the throne.

Ace appeared at the door and was appalled to see the dark-haired stranger at the bedside. "Hey! What do you think you're doing? Who are you? How did you get in here?"

Jason did not even look up. "To answer your questions in order," he said calmly, "I'm examin­ing the Doctor. I'm the King of Tel-Shye. And I came in through the door."

Ace blinked, momentarily at a loss for words. "Now look, King Whoever You Are—"

"Jason," the Alterran said with a grin as he looked up and turned. The smile vanished from his face and his mouth dropped open when he saw Ace. He was expecting to see Peri, since she had been the one with the Doctor the last time he had seen him. He was therefore unprepared for the sight of the dark-haired teenager in a leather jacket who was presently menacing him with a baseball bat. He looked her up and down and shook his head. "Oh, Doctor," he under his breath, "where _do_ you find them?"

Throwing a quick glance down at the bed, the King asked in a firm voice, "How long has he been like this?"

This was not the reaction Ace expected and she took a step back to consider the situation. She ended up bumping into Turlough as he appeared at the door behind her. He looked into the room, his mouth dropping open in amazement.

"Oh, no," he moaned, "not you, too."

Ace turned to see a look that was a combination of recognition and resignation on Turlough's face. "He's not another one, is he?" she asked.

"No, thank goodness, he's just a friend," the young man sighed relievedly before entering the room. "Jason, Ace. Ace, Jason," he said quickly before asking, "Now, how on earth did _you_ get here?"

Jason gave Turlough an amused look before explaining, "My ship hit a massive temporal distor­tion and had to make a forced landing about a mile away."

"Did the Doctor bring you back?"

Jason blinked, looking at his friend as though he had just lost his mind. "Turlough, the Doctor's hardly in any condition—"

"No, no, no, you don't understand," Turlough interrupted, raising his hands. "We've crossed the Doc­tor's time stream. Somehow the TARDIS materialized inside itself. I'm here with this Doctor, and Ace is here with another."

The Alterran's mouth dropped open, the implications of the situation not as lost on him as they were on Ace. "Oh, great," he moaned as he digested this unwelcome piece of news. "Is the other a past or future version?"

Turlough threw Ace an inquiring look, receiving a shrug in reply. "For me, future, if that helps," he said at last.

King Jason nodded. "Well, that explains a great deal," he replied thoughtfully, turning back to the inert form on the bed.

"Not to me," Ace injected fiercely. "Turlough, is this guy _really_ a King?"

"King?" Turlough gasped in disbelief. "_King!_ You were only Crown Prince when we left Tel-Shye two months ago."

"Tel-Shye? Turlough, I wasn't on Tel-Shye, I was on—" Jason broke off, his eyes grow­ing wide as a terrible realization struck him. "Good Lord, Turlough, you haven't just crossed time streams. You've been pulled too far forward in the Doctor's timeline."

"Now, how do you know that?"

"Because of what you just said," Jason replied unhelpfully. "_And_ because my eldest son is with me. The Doctor—this Doctor—met him only a year ago." Pausing, he looked point­edly at Turlough, adding, "And you weren't with him."

"What? That's impossible," Turlough gasped, trying to take this all in. "That would mean…"

"Someone is trying to interfere with the Doctor's personal history," Jason stated flatly.

After a stunned silence, Turlough asked in a hushed voice, "The Time Lords?"

"Hardly. Devious as they are, they're not nearly so crude," Jason said acidly. "No, whoever's behind this has a great deal of power and precious little knowledge—or finesse. That's why the Doctor's reacting the way he is. He's been thrown out of phase with himself."

Seeing two baffled faces looking back at him, the Alterran gave a bittersweet smile. "They're very delicate creatures when it comes to time, these Time Lords. I'm always amazed myself."

"We—_he_—passed through a time corridor recently," Turlough informed almost hesitantly. "Could that've caused this? He said he hasn't felt right since."

"It's possible…" Jason muttered thoughtfully. He looked pointedly at Ace. "Does your Doctor recall any of this?"

"He said he didn't," she replied nervously, taking a small step back. The Alterran's striking sapphire blue eyes had an unsettling affect on her and, in spite of the fact that Turlough obvi­ously considered him a friend, she found herself wishing the Doctor—_her Doctor_—would hurry up and come back.


	6. Today Is Full Of Surprises

**Chapter Six**

"**Today Is Full Of Surprises."**

Not more than a mile from the TARDIS the man Ace considered her Doctor was struggling through the forest. He had come upon a rough footpath that would have verified Jason's obser­vation that the TARDIS had landed in an old park. The day was clear and warm, the sun high and bright in the sky. _A beautiful summer's day_, he mused. Normally one would expect to hear the odd woodland creature scurrying though the undergrowth, but there was nothing. The forest was completely silent. Suddenly realizing this, the Doctor paused a moment and listened. There weren't even any birds singing. He looked around, checking the trees a little more closely. He looked around, checking the trees a little more closely. _Now what does this remind me of_? _Come on, Doctor, think!_ Suddenly he recalled the incident when he and Sarah Jane had inadvertently landed in a duplicated earth town on the Kraal's planet. _Another duplicate world?_ No, these trees were real, not plastic. There just didn't seem to be any other life on this planet.

"Now that could be worrying," the Doctor muttered as he trudged on.

Seeing a clearing up ahead, the Doctor emerged from the forest to see what appeared to be a crashed spaceship. There were two people on the ground beside it, but from where he stood he could not tell if they were hurt or just lounging in the sun.

It turned out to be the latter. Prince Juris and Lady Asta had decided to wait outside while the damaged vessel was being repaired and the combination of the warm sunshine and pastoral sur­roundings were a tonic to their frazzled nerves. They had dozed off without realizing.

"Hello! Nobody hurt, I hope," the Doctor called from the edge of the forest, startling the Royal pair.

"No," Prince Juris called back as he sat up. "Just some minor damage to the ship."

The Doctor extracted himself from the undergrowth and came over to join them, stopping short when he saw the gold collar around the young man's neck, a familiar design engraved on the jeweled medallion attached to it. He studied the couple a moment before finally placing them in his memory. "Good grief," he gasped, "this is certainly a day for surprises. It's Prince Juris, isn't it? And Lady Asta?"

The Royals exchanged a mystified look as the Time Lord bubbled on. "Yes, of course it is. My dear Asta, you look positively radiant. No pun intended, I assure you."

Asta smiled amusedly and would have blushed had she known how.

"You'll forgive me, I'm sure," Prince Juris began politely, "but we meet so many people we can't…" His voice trailed off and he left the sentence unfinished.

"In that case," the Doctor said, drawing himself to his full height and tugging on his lapels, "I shall jog your memory. I'm the Doctor."

"The Doctor!" Asta squealed in delight. She was out of her chair and hugging the astonished Time Lord before he knew what was happening. "Oh, Doctor, how wonderful!" she said happily, planting a kiss on his cheek. "I don't care if we did have to crash, I'm so glad to see you again."

The Doctor disengaged himself awkwardly, turning to the equally delighted Crown Prince. "Are you going to kiss me too, your Royal Highness?" he asked dryly.

"No," Prince Juris laughed. "But I'll bet my father will when he gets back."

"He's here as well, is he?"

Juris nodded, an odd look passing across his face. "We were en route to—" Cutting himself off, he waved a hand in the air. "Not that that's important. Anyway, he went to see if there was any kind of town nearby. He can't've gone more than a mile or so. He hasn't been gone an hour yet."

The Doctor laughed delightedly. "Don't underestimate him, dear boy. I've known him to cover thirty miles in less than an hour. Upwards of fifty, if the wind is right."

"Nobody can walk that fast, Doctor," Asta said reasonably. "Especially in this terrain."

"Walk! An Alterran?" The Doctor snorted indignantly at the very idea. "My dear Asta, he'd've flown; an eagle by day, an owl by night. If you ask me, it's his favorite mode of trans­portation. He always did the reconnaissance when we were together, especially when an area seemed inaccessible."

Juris shook his head. "No wonder he insisted on going himself. I never would've thought of that."

The Doctor marveled at him. Here was a being with the power to change into anything he wanted, and he had forgotten all about it. Choosing not to remark on this, however, the Time Lord suggested instead that the pair return to the TARDIS with him, since Jason would certainly have seen it from the air.


	7. Just A Dream?

**Chapter Seven**

**Just a Dream?**

Turlough recounted the events surrounding the Doctor's collapse to the intrigued King Jason, who listened to each detail with an intensity that even Turlough found unsettling.

"Did the Doctor say anything after the temporal distortion hit?" the Alterran asked pointedly, receiving a shake of the head in reply. Unconvinced, he pressed on, "You're sure? Not anything? Even if it seems insignificant."

"He had a nightmare," Ace injected meekly.

Jason looked up sharply. "What?"

"Yes, that's right," Turlough confirmed. "He was convinced he'd seen a hole in Time."

"A hole in Time?" the King repeated slowly. "You're sure? Those were his exact words?"

"He called it a tear, too," Ace injected.

"Yes." Turlough concentrated to recall the exact words. "An enormous tear in the fabric of time. I think that's how he put it. He was afraid he was being dragged into it." Pausing, he added worriedly, "Jason, I don't think I've ever seen him as terrified as he was of that dream."

Seeing his friend's face darken further, Turlough scowled. "Does it mean something to you?"

"I'm not sure, yet. I'm still trying to figure out _why_ it's happening at all. The TARDIS should be protecting him, so why isn't it?" Jason sat thoughtfully a moment. "Tell me. Was he doing any work on the telepathy circuits or communication systems? If they were left open—"

"Kamelion!" Turlough gasped.

The Alterran gave him a mystified look. "Kamelion?"

"He's an android. He was doing a diagnostic on the communication system and blew a fuse or something just before all this started."

Jason already knew all about Kamelion, but because of his suspicions surrounding the current situation, he did not reveal this to his friend. Things were already getting very complicated. "Is he still connected into the system?"

"Well, yes. I never went back to…" Turlough's voice trailed off when he saw the Alterran close his eyes in frustration. "Jason, what does it mean?"

"It means he's probably acting like an open window."

"That's impossible. All the safety—" Turlough broke off and groaned. "All the systems were knocked off-line when the TARDIS materialized inside itself."

"Which means it could be coming in from anywhere," Jason concluded. "Whatever you do, don't disconnect that android. If I'm right, then to close the window the wrong way could do more harm to the Doctor then's being done already."

"I don't get it," Ace said in bewilderment. "Why all this fuss over a dream?"

"I wish it were just a dream, Ace, I really do," the monarch replied soberly.

Ace exchanged a mystified look with Turlough, who asked, "If it wasn't a dream, what was it, then?"

"I'm almost positive it was a telepathic link of some kind. It's very likely he exactly saw what he said he did. The entrance to—" Jason's theories were interrupted by the arrival of Ace's Doctor, who greeted his visibly re­lieved companion and then took in the occupants of the room, breaking into a broad smile.

"Now here's what I call a Royal Flush," he chirped brightly. "An Ace, a King and a Knave; all in one hand." He received a chorus of groans in reply.

"And _you,_ no doubt, are the Joker," Jason shot back smoothly. Nodding to the motionless form on the bed, he added, "Does that make him the Wild Card?"

"Not so wild at the moment," the Time Lord remarked.

"Don't be fooled by appearances, Doctor," the King said with a distinct edge to his voice. "This planet is a virtual ghost town." He stiff­ened visibly when his ward came to the door but said nothing, returning his gaze to the Doctor, who noted the reaction but was unaware of its implica­tions. Instead he gave his Alterran friend an odd look, "What makes you say that?"

"I found a city a short distance from here. The buildings are crumbling on the outside, but look practically new inside. As if whoever owned them just walked away and never came back," the monarch informed.

"I came across something similar myself," the Time Lord informed. "Lots of greenery, but no animals inhabiting it." He glanced over his shoulder. "I did find your son and ward, however, and took the liberty of bringing them back with me." Blithely entering the room, the Doctor added, "I hope you don't mind. They looked so bored and I knew—" He broke off and put a hand to his head, staggering back a few steps.

Jason was instantly on his feet. "Doctor, what's wrong?"

"I don't know. I feel very strange." With that the Time Lord promptly fainted. The aston­ished Prince Juris caught him as he fell, looking up at his father in shock.

With all eyes focused on the Doctor, no one noticed that Asta had also been affected by some sudden malady. She wavered a moment, closing her eyes and leaning heavily back against the door.

"Juris, quickly! Get him out of here!" the King commanded.

Needing no further prompting, the Prince swept the Time Lord into his arms and carried him from the room, Ace at his heels. From behind them, they heard the monarch call, "Take him to the console room and keep the door closed. It's his only protection now!"

"Protection from what!" Turlough exploded.

The King did not answer him, his gaze having turned to Asta, who was purposely avoiding looking at him. "_Well…?"_ he said coldly. "_Now_ are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"I don't know what you mean," she protested unconvincingly. "I told you I sensed danger—"

"Danger? _Danger!_" Jason was beside himself. "I'm not as big a fool as you think I am. The Doctor's body is completely out of synch from being dragged through his own time stream by a hamfisted amateur who's trying to pull him through a dimensional fissure."

"Jason, what _are_ you talking about?" Turlough demanded, now completely out of his depth. "Do you know what's going on?"

"I do now. We're dealing with an enemy out of time." Jason held up a hand in anticipation the barrage of questions to follow. "Don't even ask, Turlough, because I can't even begin to ex­plain it properly. We'll have to let the Doctor sort it out." With that, he started across the room.

"But what about this one?" Turlough called, pointing to the seemingly forgotten Time Lord on the bed.

Stopping at the door, King Jason glared pointedly at Asta. "Well?"

Lowering her eyes, she said sadly, "It's too late."

This was not the answer the monarch expected and he threw a horrified look across the room before grabbing his ward by the shoulders and shaking her. "Is he already dead?"

Receiving no reply, Jason shook her again, causing her to cry out. "Asta, is he already dead!" he demanded again.

"I don't know!" Asta cried, trying unsuccessfully to pull away. "No, I don't think so. The extrac­tion's just taken place. That's why the Doctor's other self was affected."

Cursing under his breath, Jason shoved his ward roughly out of the way and strode out the door.

Now in tears, Asta called out in an insistent and pleading voice, "Jason, please, you must be­lieve me! I didn't know this would happen! I didn't know!"

The King spun around and glared hatefully back at her, saying nothing, yet saying every­thing. Too enraged to think of any suitable remark, he turned his back on her and stormed down the corridor.


	8. Kidnapped

**Chapter Eight**

**Kidnapped**

At the other end of the spatial rift, Turlough's Doctor was slowly recovering from his journey through the inter-dimensional fissure. The alien power used to find and bring him there had completely thrown off his temporal stability. Normally, he would have been able to overcome this, but things had been further complicated by the unnatural bend in his time stream, wearing down his strength faster than he could compensate.

Opening his eyes slowly, the Doctor found himself surrounded by strange and beautiful col­ors that seemed to move and swirl with a life of their own. He watched them groggily for several minutes before realizing he was not dreaming. When he tried to sit up he discovered, with a bit of a shock, that he was suspended on a gigantic spider's web, his hands and feet secured to it with metal clamps. The shock of finding himself in such a position was equaled only by his be­wil­derment as to how he had gotten there. The web seemed to be made of a heavy rubberized mate­rial, yet this did not deter him from making certain there were no giant spiders roaming the area. Once satis­fied this was not the case the Doctor gave his bonds a tug, amusing an unseen ob­server. A deep, malevolent chuckle suddenly rolled like thunder from around him.

"Have you ever wondered how a fly feels when it's caught in a spider's web, Time Lord?" the disembodied voice asked tauntingly.

"Not really," came the bland reply. "Who are you? Why have you brought me here?"

The laughter that rolled forth was so loud it caused the web to vibrate and hurt the Doctor's ears. "I am the god of this universe," came the grandiose reply.

The captive Time Lord raised his eyebrows. "Are you really? That's very interesting. I don't think I've ever met a genuine god before." The Doctor was rambling, something he often did when he needed time to think. His mind, on the other hand, was racing as hundreds of questions competed for his attention. Keeping his voice light, he asked, "May I ask what I'm to call you? You have a name, I take it?"

"Oh, I have a name. But I shan't tell it to _you_," came the smug reply.

"Why? Afraid it might give me an advantage?" This question was meant to be disarming, as it was obvious the Doctor was in no way at an advantage. All the same an arrow found its mark. Just as Jason suspected, the self-proclaimed deity was Ormril, an enemy from the Time Lord's future. It was the Doctor's extensive knowledge of Ormril's history that had allowed him to de­feat him; so to know his name would give him a distinct advantage.

A red glow suddenly appeared around the Doctor, sending shock waves of pain throughout his entire body. Taken completely off guard he cried out in alarm, struggling in vain against his bonds.

"I fear no one, Time Lord, least of all _you!_" Ormril thundered, punctuating his declaration by tearing a cry of pain from his prisoner. "I am Lord and Master here. You'd do well to remember that."

His authority thus established, Ormril released the Doctor from his torment. Dazed and bewil­dered, he sagged back against the web where several disquieting questions won the compe­tition with the other and gained his complete attention. _Where am I, exactly? How did I get here? And, come to that, what's become of Turlough?_ Fearing what he might be told, the Doctor kept these thoughts to him­self asking only, "What do you want of me?"

"Only your life, Doctor," the deep voice snarled.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of relief. _Finally!_ _An answer I can deal with_. "Oh, is that all," he heard himself saying. "I was afraid it might be something important."

"Don't play the fool with me!" Ormril snapped angrily. "I know you place a value on life. Would you so carelessly throw away your own when it could be used to save another?"

Sensing a trap, the Doctor's eyes narrowed. Whatever his capture was after, he seemed will­ing to do anything to get it. "Are you asking me to bargain with you? My life in exchange for someone else?" he asked in as even a tone as possible.

"I might be…" came the evasive reply. "The question is, would you be willing to do it? For say…the boy who travels with you, perhaps?" The appalled expression this question induced caused Ormril to laugh. "You're a sentimental fool, Doctor. That's your weakness. I, on the other hand, am not burdened by emotional attachments. _That_ is my strength."

"Are you going to kill me or just talk me to death?" the Doctor snapped sarcastically. He knew the moment he had spoken that he'd made a mistake. The red light returned, as did the pain. Helpless in its grasp, he let out a wail of anguish, his body arching like a bow as the inten­sity of his agony increased.

Ormril watched his prisoner's suffering in sadistic delight before saying suddenly, "No, I won't kill you now. To kill you quickly would be too good a fate for you."

The light vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving the Doctor dazed and exhausted. He hung limply in his bonds inwardly wishing he could just pass out and be spared any further bom­bastic prattle.

"I have it in my power to keep you conscious until the very instant of your death," Ormril threatened on. "If I had the time, I'd see to it it took millennia. A fitting punishment for your part in my captivity."

This last statement penetrated the Doctor's benumbed brain and he looked up fuzzily. "_Your_ captivity?"

"Never mind," Ormril said quickly. "I must leave you for a time. You'd be wise to take this opportunity to think about what I've said before we continue." The alien colors of the strange universe suddenly swirled, glowing brightly and then fading as Ormril took his leave.

Grateful, the Doctor watched him go, having had quite his fill of his captor's loquaciousness. It took several minutes before he felt alert enough to concentrate his thoughts in any meaningful way. He then tried to remember the chain of events that had led him to this chamber of horrors, but try as he might, he could remember nothing after leaving Tegan on Earth.

Leaning back against the web, the Doctor sighed heavily. It was no use. His memory would yield him nothing. He glanced uneasily around and wondered if it might be too much to hope for that someone would come and rescue him.


	9. Theories

**Chapter Nine**

**Theories**

Turlough was more worried than ever when he and Asta eventually arrived at the console room. They found Jason relating his suspicions to the visibly recovered Doctor, who had returned to normal the in­stant he entered the console room.

Juris came over and was surprised to see Asta was trem­bling. She was in no mood to be fussed over, however, and waved off his inquiries, taking a seat just inside the door.

"But Ormril was destroyed when he tried to cross the gateway after it was closed," the Doctor protested.

"We don't know that for a fact," Jason countered. "We only hoped it at the time, remember? Juris said he was disoriented. What if he didn't even try? What if he had to generate more power? We can't be sure of anything when it comes to the workings of that dimension, can we?"

The Doctor was puzzled at his friend's blatant disregard of Asta's extensive knowledge of the workings of the alternate dimension, which only served to confirm his suspicions that all was not as it should be with his Alterran friends. "Asta, is what Jason says feasible?" he asked. "Could Ormril have survived an attempt to cross the threshold without you?"

"Yes, he could, but…" Asta threw the glowering monarch a quick sideways glance before saying, "I doubt he would've even tried without—"

"What!" Jason sprang to his feet. "And you never said anything! You must've known he'd try again." His voice hardened as he added, "Or was that the plan?"

"Father, how can you say that?" Juris protested angrily. "Asta would no more hurt the Doctor than you would."

As father and son locked eyes, the Doctor thought, for just an instant, that he could actually feel their anger moving like sparks between them.

"You never have trusted her, have you?" the Prince went on bitterly. "You think it's all been a trick."

"Well, we're all back together again, aren't we?" his father countered sharply. "And I sup­pose it was just a coincidence the Doctor's life force was extracted at exactly the same moment she turned up."

"Alright, that's enough!" the Doctor snapped impatiently, putting himself between them. "This isn't getting us anywhere. We don't even know if it is Ormril or not."

"Yes we do," Asta said quietly. "During the extraction, I felt…_him_." Giving way to an involun­tary shudder, she confessed, "I didn't know myself until that moment that he'd survived."

The Doctor found this intriguing as well as unsettling. "You didn't happen to get any indica­tion as to what he's up to, did you?"

Asta nodded slowly. "He wants to alter history. _Your_ history. He's trying to destroy you at a time before you stopped him from reentering this universe."

The stunned silence that followed was broken by Ace. "Excuse me. Do you think somebody could tell me what all this means?" she said sharply. "I wasn't in on any this, you know."

"Neither was I," Turlough chimed in. "In fact, it isn't even supposed to have happened for me yet."

The Doctor exchanged glances with the Royal Alterrans before taking his companions aside, telling them of the alternate dimension, Ormril's attempt to escape captivity, and of his creation that had extracted Prince Juris' life force and held it captive for nearly a year.

"When his plan failed, the entity was supposed to kill Juris," the Doctor explained, "but in­stead he managed to convince it to return him to this dimension and then follow with him, leav­ing Ormril behind."

Turlough threw an astonished look in the Prince's direction. "Why on earth would he want to do that? Why not just leave it there too?"

The Time Lord gave a brief smile. "Because sometime over the centuries, the entity had at­tained sentience. Juris is Alterran and the thought of leaving the creature enslaved to Ormril went against his very nature."

"So…what happened to it?" Ace wanted to know.

"Well, thanks some brilliant manipulation of the power station's energy output by yours truly," the Doctor said in a self-satisfied tone, "it became Lady Asta." He turned his gaze across the room.

Ace and Turlough exchanged an astonished look before following his gaze.

"And I've no doubt Ormril wants her back," the Doctor went on. "Although I seriously doubt he realizes she's sentient. He may think she passed through the portal while he was dazed and got trapped here when the gateway was closed. For all he knows she's just waiting for instruc—" Cutting himself off, he struck his forehead with an open palm as a sudden thought struck him. "Of course! I'm a fool! Jason, it was _Asta_ who controlled the power, not Ormril. He just gave the orders. He must've tried to control it and ended up botching the whole operation."

"Not quite," the King countered firmly. "He still managed to extract the majority of your life force. And none of us has the power it takes to cross the rift in order to retrieve it." Turning pointedly to his ward, he said sharply, "None of us but Asta, that is."

Juris was incensed. "Father, you're jumping to conclusions again! Any one of us could—"

"Could _what?_ Cross it?" his father cut in sharply. "How? Answer me that? We don't possess that kind of power."

"Neither does she!" the Prince snarled.

Asta put a restraining hand on Juris' arm. "No, Juris, he's right," she said softly.

Before Jason could declare victory for finally having extracted this confession, Tur­lough broke in. "Hang on a minute. I know this is going to sound cold-blooded, but if Ormril is that powerful, why didn't he just kill the Doctor here? Why drag him through time and then into an­other dimension?"

It was Asta who replied. "Because his power is limited here. He's only working through a dimensional fissure, not a true gateway. He can't cross over physically without enormous amounts of power. He can only take mental control, as he did with Juris."

Jason's eyes grew wide. "Do you mean he can take control of the Doctor?"

"He could have had he not made the mistake of crossing the Doctor's time stream." Asta turned to Ace's Doctor, saying, "Your very presence here is preventing him from controlling or taking possession of your other self."

"Taking possession!" Turlough gasped. "You mean he can trade places with someone here?"

The young woman nodded. "Temporarily, yes. He did it with Juris. He could do it again. That's why I have to go back."

The Doctor's face darkened. "Asta, you realize the risk you'd be taking? The bend in my time­line might cause you to revert back to—"

"Not if you help me," Asta said quickly. "All I need is a bridge to stay free of his control."

"And _how_ do you propose setting up this bridge?" Jason asked coldly.

His ward met his accusing gaze steadily. "Ormril's already done that for me. One Doctor here, another there."

"No!" Prince Juris objected, his voice suddenly cold and sharp. "I won't allow it! I won't let you go back!"

"You can't stop her, either," the Time Lord pointed out. "In case you've forgotten, you're the one who gave her her freedom."


	10. Making Contact

**Chapter Ten**

**Making Contact**

Prince Juris spun around, a beseeching expression on his face. "Doctor, you don't know what it's like in there. If she goes in, she'll never come out."

"No, Juris!" Asta snapped, her voice no longer soft and gentle. "For once, your father and I agree. Only I have the power to cross the rift, and only I have the power to return the Doctor's life force intact."

"But, Asta—"

"But nothing. If Ormril succeeds, everything will've been in vain. He'll alter the course of history and guarantee that his defeat of a year ago becomes a victory. You will die. Your father will die. Everyone on that planet _will_ die. And I will be the force behind it all. Is that what you want?"

Receiving no reply from the stunned Prince, Asta rose to her feet, turning pointedly to the equally stunned King Jason. "Is that what you want, your Majesty? It isn't what I want, what­ever you may think. I will not be a slave again."

* * *

Asta had refused to argue further and return to the room where the Doctor's other self lay as pale and still as death itself. Jason examined him closely, reporting that the phasing had stopped, as had nearly all brain activity. He went on to say that, if he did not know better, he would have pro­nounced the Time Lord in an irreversible coma.

Asta went into the adjoining room and stretched out on the bed, silencing the still protesting Juris by pointing out that as far as she was concerned she owed her very existence to the Doctor. If she did not attempt to save him now, she would never have the chance to live at all. With this said, she instructed Ace's Doctor to make mental contact with his other self, needing only the briefest contact in order to get a bearing and set up the bridge.

"I don't know how long this will take once I'm there," Asta said softly. "Time moves differ­ently there. I could find your other self within seconds, but it might be several hours on this side."

The Doctor threw Jason a quelling look before saying simply, "We understand."

"I have a question," Ace broke in hesitantly. "If this place is like you say, won't he be pretty confused?"

Asta exchanged a puzzled look with the Doctor before confirming that this was indeed a pos­si­bility. Ace then asked what would happen if the Doctor refused to go with her? What if he thought she was in on it?

"Now there's a point," the Doctor muttered thoughtfully. "I probably would be rather reluc­tant to believe a cloud of smoke."

"Why don't you just tell him 'Brave heart?'" Turlough said sarcastically. "He'll know what you mean by that."

The Doctor beamed back at him. "That's very good, Turlough. I couldn't've done better my­self."

"Oh, do get on with it!" Jason moaned impatiently.

"No!" Juris wailed, clutching Asta by the hand. "I'm begging you, don't do this. Let me. I've been there. I could—"

"You could get yourself killed," Asta said sternly. "None of you has any conception of what he's really like. But I do." Laying back, she closed her eyes and cleared her mind, saying softly, "Now, Doctor."

Closing his own eyes, the Time Lord drew a deep breath and reached out with his mind, con­centrating to find and make contact with his other self. To his amazement, he actually did. It was clear, brief, and utterly terrifying. He came out of his trance with a cry of pain, falling to the floor, dazed and shaking.

This reaction quite naturally took everyone by surprise and for a frozen moment no one moved. Ace was the first to reach the Doctor's side. "Doctor! Doctor, what happened?"

Jason took the direct approach, pulling the dazed Time Lord to his feet and slapping him across the face. "Doctor, snap out of it!" he commanded sharply, shaking him by the shoulders.

The Doctor drew a sharp breath and staggered back, shaking his head to clear it. "I'm alright. I'm alright," he said irritably, practically falling back into his chair.

"Yeah, you look it," the King observed sarcastically. "What the hell happened?"

The Doctor looked up at him. "Contact."

"You made contact?" Jason gasped. "You're sure?"

"Very sure. I was being put to death."

* * *

Jason examined the pale and motionless Asta, announcing that she too, was now in a very deep coma. With nothing to do but wait, the Doctor got shakily to his feet and, with Ace to steady him, went into the next room. Turlough made to follow only to be forestalled by Jason.

"We need to talk," the monarch said softly. "If by some wild chance this works, we need to have a plan ready."

The young man gave the Alterran a blank look. "Why?"

Jason explained that, if Asta succeeded, then the comatose Doctor would be wide awake and bursting with a tale that they would have to go out of their way to convince him was a dream.

"Jason, how are you going to convince him of anything?" his friend wanted to know. "You're not the same person I met two months ago. You're the King, for pity sake. Not to men­tion how many years older."

"More than you realize," the monarch said enigmatically. "Fortunately, I'm not just Alterran. I also have total recall. I can change back to the me you remember, and if the Doctor's confused enough when he comes to, we should be able to convince him of practically anything."

Turlough seemed less than enthusiastic and Jason asked, "You _can_ handle that, I trust?"

"I think I can manage," his friend replied with a wry smile, thinking this to be one of the few times he had actually been asked to lie.

Jason grinned at him. "I'd better get some medicine mixed up then. In his present condition, he'll need at least one day's bed rest just to get his strength back, and that'll work to our advan­tage."

"I suppose I'd better see if I can get Kamelion working again," Turlough said thoughtfully. "He'll be able to help in the nursing department."

"No!" Jason cried in a tone that surprised both of them. "Don't unplug him. If he is the win­dow, we can't afford to close it until the Doctor comes back."

Turlough nodded, admitting that he had not thought of this. With a resigned sigh, he went into the next room.

Jason also sighed heavily, glancing over to his son, who sat in silent vigil beside Asta's inert form. "Juris, why don't you—?"

"Don't talk to me!" the Prince snarled savagely. "I don't want to hear anything you have to say."

"Juris!" his father gasped.

Juris looked up with tears in his eyes. "You got what you wanted. She's gone. You don't have to fight me anymore. I hope you're happy, _your Royal Majesty_, because I'll never forgive you for this. Never."

The King took a step forward, stopping when he saw the look of unbridled hatred on his son's face. "Go away!" the boy yelled angrily. "Just leave me alone. I never want to see you again!"

To his own amazement, Jason heard himself saying, "That's fine with me."


	11. Alone At Last

**Chapter Eleven**

**Alone At Last**

Controlling himself with visible effort, Jason went into the next room, closing the door behind him. He glanced over at the Doctor, seeing him leaning back in his chair, his eyes closed. Taking a seat near the door, the Alterran exchanged glances with Ace and Turlough before sighing heavily, looking again in the Time Lord's direction. Even though this was the first time since the strange affair began that he had time to talk with his old friend, Jason found himself curiously at a loss for words.

Sensing the sudden tension, Turlough gave Ace a nudge. "I think we ought to leave them alone, don't you?" he said quietly.

Ace nodded. "A discreet exit, I think."

Rising to his feet, Turlough announced that he was going to the console room to see if he could get some of the systems back on line. Ace "volunteered" to accompany him and they took their leave.

The Doctor was not fooled by any of this and sat quietly for several minutes before quietly asking, "Jason, what do you have against Asta?"

Startled by the sudden question, the King looked up sharply. "What?"

The Doctor repeated the question, going on to add, "She's a kind and gentle young woman. What did she ever—?"

Jason bristled. "I don't think that's any of your business."

The Time Lord's eyes widened and he sat up. "Really? That's a switch," he observed, receiv­ing a disgusted snort in reply. "Jason, that young woman is risking the only thing she can truly call her own—her independence. And all you can do is bemoan the fact that your son loves her. Or thinks he does, at any rate."

"Doctor, she's not real!"

"Rubbish! She's as real as you or I."

"No! You may think she is, and I thought so too once. But she's not," the King said fiercely. "She's still a creature of evil. I know it for a fact. She's been trying to drive a wedge between Juris and me for months. I can't talk to him anymore. She never leaves his side."

"Oh, come now…"

"Doctor, I know what I'm talking about. She goes out of her way to please him."

"To please _him?_" The Doctor was incredulous. "Jason, you're an even bigger idiot than I re­member," he observed savagely. "If that were true, she never would've attempted this. She's do­ing this to please you!"

"_Me?_ Don't be ridiculous. She knows I'm on to her."

The Doctor ignored the remark. "Tell me. What does Shadra think of her? She's a good judge of character. Does she—?"

"You leave my wife out to this!" Jason snarled defensively, his eyes blazing.

"Just as I thought," the Doctor muttered triumphantly. "She likes her too, doesn't she? That rather makes you the odd man out, doesn't it?"

The Alterran merely snorted again.

"Jason, don't you think it's time you stopped acting like a child and just admitted you're wrong?"

Rising to his feet, the monarch stated categorically, "I am not wrong!"

Recognizing the rare tone of regal authority, the Doctor responded with a mocking laugh. "King Jason decrees that he is not wrong."

"I don't have to listen to this," Jason hissed and started for the door.

"You're right," the Time Lord went on in the same mocking tone, "you don't have to listen to this. You're His Most Royal Majesty King Jason of Tel-Shye."

The Alterran stopped short and stiffened visibly, turning back slowly.

Ignoring the dark look and visible signs of Jason's growing rage, the Doctor continued, "You know, I knew an Alterran once who would listen. He wouldn't always do as he was told, but at least he'd listen. Come to think of it, he was of Royal Blood, too. Not that you'd've known it. He wasn't arrogant or ill mannered the way some can be. In fact, he freely admitted that he was an idiot from time to time." Pausing a beat, he added, "I wonder whatever became of him."

The Doctor watched as his friend's eyes went icy cold, the expression on his face sending a chill down his spine and causing him to stiffen involuntarily. He had seen Jason lose his temper on more occasions than he cared to remember, having been on the receiving end more times than he cared to re­member, too. Yet in all that time he had never seen so malicious a look preceding an eruption of Mt. Jason.

"I hate you for that, Doctor," Jason hissed venomously. "For the rest of my life, I'll hate you for that."

The Time Lord's mouth dropped open. "Will you really?" he asked in a tone of blank astonish­ment.

Jason did not reply. He had always considered the Doctor his closest friend. They had been through life and death struggles, roamed distant galaxies, and shared adventures that few had even dreamed of. Now they stood at a crossroads and all Jason could see was their parting com­pany forever. But instead of feeling sad, as he should have, he found himself filled with a sense of relief, which completely baffled him.

"On one occasion," the Doctor said quietly, "you had me give you my solemn promise that I would come back to see you at least once before you died. Would you send me away now on the promise that I never return?"

After a silence that spoke volumes, the King drew a deep breath and straightened. "You don't want to know the answer to that, Doctor," he announced. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have some medicine to make up for Turlough." With that, he strode from the room.

Mystified by his friend's bizarre and totally uncharacteristic behavior, the Doctor rose to his feet, throwing a look towards the next room. "That's where you're wrong, my friend," he mut­tered darkly. "I most certainly _do_ want to know the answer."


	12. Boxed In

**Chapter Twelve**

**Boxed In**

Across the spatial rift, the captive Doctor had sufficiently recovered his strength to go over his situation in his mind. The results were not something he cared to dwell on. Suddenly the colors around him started to swirl furiously and he braced himself as his abductor returned, taking the form of a dark spot that hovered ominously on the horizon.

"Social call?" the Doctor asked mildly.

Ormril responded with a growl. Even without knowing his identity the infuriating Time Lord had been able to maintain his advantage. The Doctor's habit of masking his true thoughts with flippancy made it impossible for his captor to read his mind. Ormril was trying to discover even the most basic computations the Doctor had used to create the gateway program. With the knowledge of inter-dimensional spatial theory in his possession, Ormril hoped he would be able to create the gateway on his own, thus releasing himself from captivity.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Doctor," the false god announced finally.

"We can't have that, now can we?" the Time Lord said mildly, catching his breath as a single stab of pain shot through him.

"You haven't once asked me to spare your life," Ormril went on to say.

"What's the point? You're going to kill me no matter what I say."

"Perhaps I'll spare you," his captor purred.

The Doctor gave an indignant snort. "I doubt it. You want something from me. And once you get it, I'm of no use to you."

"What could I possibly want from an insignificant worm like you?"

"I don't know. All I know is you've been trying to read my mind since I arrived."

"Trying?" the false god said in mock surprise. "I don't have to try to do anything."

"Yes, I know. You're the Lord and Master here," the Doctor said unenthusiastically.

The red glow returned in response to this, only this time its intensity was greatly diminished. No longer excruciating, the pain was more like a gnawing ache, allowing the captive Time Lord to respond with something more intelligible than a scream of agony. Not that he had anything to respond to. Ormril had launched into yet another tirade.

The Doctor groaned inwardly. _Why must these megalomaniacs always make a speech?_ he thought wearily. "Yes, yes, that's all very interesting," he broke in sharply, "but what do you want from _me?_ Aside from my life, that is?"

"Knowledge, Time Lord," Ormril stated flatly. "And I assure you, I have the power to take it from you."

The glow suddenly burned like fire and the Doctor cried out as the intensity of his pain in­creased a hundred fold. He suddenly felt the alien presence clawing at his thoughts and concen­trated to shut it out. Ormril simply responded by increasing the level of his pain, laughing sadis­tically as his prisoner let out a cry of anguish and struggled in vain against his bonds.

It was at this moment the mental contact from the Doctor's other self came through, and even though he was beyond sensing it, Ormril was not. The self-proclaimed deity was appalled when the powerful burst of mental energy suddenly invaded his domain and he immediately broke of the "interrogation" in order to concentrate on the disturbance, finding no trace of it. He cursed angrily, knowing he would have no other course but to methodically track it down.

The Doctor was just barely conscious when he was suddenly released from his torment and this left him completely unprepared for what came next. His bonds, along with the enormous web, abruptly vanished into thin air. He let out a small cry of alarm when he found himself plum­meting through the endless black expanses of space, only to stop with gut wrenching suddenness when the thought entered his mind that in space he should be weightless.

Stunned, exhausted, and almost afraid to open his eyes, the Time Lord lay motionless on the apparently solid surface for nearly a minute before finally chancing a peek. Then he wished he had not. As far as he could tell, he was lying on an invisible barrier suspended over an enormous swirling abyss. "You had to look," he scolded with a groan. "You just _had_ to look."

Slowly and painfully, the Doctor raised himself to his elbows. After a few minutes he man­aged to get to a partial sitting position, the whole time wondering what would come next. What came next were four walls, a ceiling, and a floor that formed themselves out of the swirl­ing mass of colors and completely encased him. Heavy chains sprang from one wall, moving snakelike across the floor and attaching themselves to the startled Time Lord's wrists and ankles.

What followed was a deafening silence.

Now thoroughly confused, the Doctor struggled to sit up fully, wondering why his abductor had so suddenly abandoned him. Or if indeed he had abandoned him. Dismissing the latter as­sumption, he gave his prison a cursory glance before turning his attention to his bindings. He was about to pick the locks when he discovered, with a bit of a shock, that they were solid bands of metal. He had seen them snap closed when they attached themselves to him, yet there was no seam on them anywhere.

Heaving an exasperated sigh, the Doctor hauled himself to his feet and started to methodi­cally search the walls. With any luck, he thought hopefully, he might be able to find some kind of hidden release mechanism. Or better still, an exit.


	13. I'm On Your Side

**Chapter Thirteen**

"**I'm On Your Side."**

Arriving at the room he had once called his own, Jason paused in the doorway a moment, as the memories came flooding back. Turlough's remark about his having seen him only two months ago came to mind and he shook his head. They had already crossed paths since then, in an adven­ture that had occurred while he was still Crown Prince, the memory of which still made him shudder. As he took in the room, a wry smile came to his face, his eye falling on his extensive herb collection on the shelves still patiently waiting for his return. He gathered them during his time as the Doctor's traveling com­panion, the memories from that time floating back to him. He had been so young, he recalled, looking up to his brilliant (and eccen­tric) friend, who was in his fourth incarnation at the time. What adventures they had shared. How very close they had be­come. How far apart they now were.

Shaking these thoughts from his mind, Jason set to work preparing the medication he had promised Turlough. He paged slowly through one of his old, dust covered notebooks, each entry rekindling yet another memory. Again he had to shake himself back to reality.

"Come on, Krystovan," he admonished softly, "keep your mind on your work."

After deciding on the appropriate combination of herbs, Jason went to the shelf containing the herb collection. It was practi­cally overflowing with containers of all shapes and sizes, each clearly labeled and set in precise order. He had originally regretted not taking it with him, but later he chose to leave it where it was, which turned out to be a wise decision. This was not the first time he has utilized it since leaving the Doctor's company as a traveling companion. He selected what he needed, carefully measuring out each ingredient and setting them out onto the counter.

Jason was so engrossed in his work that the sound of quiet knock at the door made him jump and he spun around to see Ace's Doctor standing in the doorway. "Come to make sure I don't poison it?" he snapped, his venomous tone surprising even himself.

The Doctor held up his hands. "Jason, I'm on your side, remember?"

"You could've fooled me," the Alterran snorted. Taking a large marble mortar and pestle from a collection on a nearby shelf, he combined the herbs he had measured out and began force­fully grinding them into a fine powder. "Who's with your other self, anyway?"

"Turlough. He told me your plan about what's to happen when I wake up. Quite an impres­sive little conspiracy you two've cooked up," the Doctor said approvingly.

Jason gave a non-communicative grunt and continued with his work while his friend studied him thoughtfully. This last remark should have caused an explanation to burst forth, yet it re­ceived almost no response at all.

"Jason, what on earth is the matter with you?" the Time Lord demanded at last. "You've had a chip on your shoulder from the moment I saw you. Now what is it?"

The King looked up, the fire burning in his eyes once again. "You! That's what's the matter. It's you! Why are you opposing me, Doctor? You've never—" He broke off and turned back to his work, choosing to leave the sentence unfinished.

The Doctor had to stop himself from laughing. "Jason, we've spent the better part of the time we've known each other arguing over one thing or another. But in all that time I've never known you to react with hatred. Explosive rage, yes. But hatred?"

With a smile of irony, Jason replied, "Maybe I've finally grown up."

"If you ask me, you're still acting like a child."

"Well, I'm not asking you, Time Lord!" the Alterran roared viciously.

"Oh, so that's how it's going to be, is it, _your Royal Majesty?_" the Doctor replied, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Jason glared at him. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Too bad, because you're going to."

The monarch opened his mouth but the Doctor cut him off. "No. You're going to listen to me, Jason Krystovan. Someone needs to talk some sense into that thick head of yours, because if you keep on this way, you're going to lose your son."

"I've already lost my son, Doctor, or hadn't you noticed?"

"And just whose fault is that? Asta's I suppose?"

"You saw the same thing I did, Doctor," the King objected.

"Jason, are you _that_ blind?" the Doctor exploded. "Have you become so incredibly close-minded that you won't even look? Asta isn't trying to control Juris, she's trying to protect him. If you'd opened your eyes, you'd've seen that."

The Alterran's eyes narrowed and the Doctor could see he was very close to losing his tem­per all together. All the same, he pressed on. "Jason, there's more going on here than meets the eye and I think you know it. You just won't face it. Something's got hold of that boy's mind and if you don't do something fast, you really will lose him forever."

"Are you saying all this is my fault?" Jason snarled defensively, receiving a guileless half smile in reply. "You are! You're saying I could lose Juris the same way my father almost lost me, aren't you?"

"Am I?" the Doctor asked innocently.

"That's not fair, Doctor. My father's dead. He can't object to you anymore." A powerful hand suddenly flashed out, taking the unsuspecting Time Lord by the throat. "But I can!"


	14. What's Happening To Me?

**Chapter Fourteen**

"**What's Happening To Me?"**

In all their previous encounters, the Doctor had been larger in stature than his Alterran friend, but this was no longer the case. Not that it mattered. Whatever his physical size, Jason was in­credi­bly strong and had always been quite capable of killing the Doctor if he so desired. On the other hand, he was still an Alterran, and notwithstanding his occasional flashes of temper, his true na­ture was re­pulsed by violence. So why was he currently trying to throttle the life out of his oldest friend? It was this last question that was uppermost in the Doctor's mind as he clawed desper­ately at the hand that was slowly lifting him from the floor.

"How's that for having a hold on someone, Doctor?" the King hissed tauntingly. "Why don't I just save Ormril the trouble and kill you myself?"

"Is that…what you…really…want?" the Doctor struggled to gasp out, clinging to the vice-like hand at his throat.

Jason opened his mouth to reply, only to stop. There had been a voice echoing inside his mind for the last few months that he had been dismissing as vague stray thoughts. Now, for the first time, he realized it was distinctly there. It was clear and strong. Deep, malevolent and….

With a jolt, Jason realized the voice was not his. It was someone else, urging him—no, _com­manding_ him—to kill. _Kill the Doctor. Kill him now!_

"No! Not again! Never again!" he said suddenly. Slowly, and with visible effort, he forced his hand open, releasing the struggling Time Lord, who dropped to the floor and lay gasping for breath. Staggering back, Jason put his hands to his head and closed his eyes, concentrating with every fiber of his being to focus his thoughts and force the intruder from his mind. "Get out! Get out!" he said between clenched teeth. "Whoever you are, get out!"

This inner battle went on for nearly a minute before a small sigh escaped the Alterran and he went into a trance, his body suddenly relaxing completely.

From his place on the floor, the Doctor watched all this in astonishment, wanting to kick him­self at the same time for having failed to see the truth sooner. It was all too obvious now that his friend had been fighting against a force playing on his emotional, and ofttimes explosive, personality. Rubbing his bruised neck, the Time Lord was grateful that his Alterran friend's true nature had prevailed in time. "Well done, Turlough," he sighed approvingly.

Getting to his feet, the Doctor scrutinized the motionless monarch. "I didn't expect you as well," he said softly, shaking his head. "I should've done, but I didn't. You've been fighting this a long time, too, by the look of you. Now just when did it start? And why did it wait until now to take hold so strongly?"

Turlough appeared at the door, interrupting this one-sided conversation. He stopped dead in his tracks at the sight of the statue-like King.

"Well?" the Doctor demanded, bringing the young man back to reality.

"Everything went as planned," his companion reported. "Juris went just like that the minute I unhooked Kamelion."

"Excellent!" the Time Lord enthused.

Turlough threw a puzzled and questioning look in Jason's direction. "Is he alright?" he asked concernedly.

"He will be."

The young man seemed less than convinced. "Now what?"

"We carry on as planned, of course," the Time Lord replied acidly, apparently insulted that there would be any doubt.

Turlough was certain the Doctor did not have the faintest idea what they should do next and was about to say so when he realized he was none the wiser himself. Deciding to keep this thought to himself, he turned on his heel and left.

"Now, time to get you sorted out," the Doctor said as he returned his attention to the silent Alterran. "Jason?" he said softly. "Jason, can you hear me? Open your eyes if you can hear me."

Obediently, Jason slowly opened his eyes and stared blankly into space. The Doctor snapped his fin­gers in front of his face and he returned to his senses with a jolt. "No!" he cried out, staggering back against the counter where he had been preparing his medicine. Now completely disoriented, the Alterran looked around, not quite certain where he was. "Wh…what happened?" he asked in a fearful tone.

"At a glance," the Doctor responded blandly, "I'd say you were trying to kill me."

"What!" Putting a hand to his spinning head, Jason said, "Doctor, can't you be serious just once?"

The Doctor studied his friend's puzzled, almost terrified expression and was relieved to see the unnerving shadow of malice had vanished from his eyes. Narrowing his own eyes, he said, "Tell me. How do you feel?"

Jason blinked. "Feel? What do you mean, how do I feel?" He was incredulous that his friend should choose that particular moment to start worrying about his health, especially since he had yet to answer his question.

"Happy, sad, angry. How do you feel?" the Time Lord asked, adding innocently, "Do you still hate me?"

"What? Hate you! Doctor, what are you talking about? I could never..." The Alterran's voice trailed off as the afternoon's events suddenly returned to his mind. He could recall every detail with complete clarity, but it was as if he were watching someone else. _How could I've said those horrible things? Why did I let myself get so angry? Why did I listened to…to… **Who was that?**_

Looking up, Jason said shakily, "Doctor, what's happening to me? Am I—?" Swallowing hard, he forced himself to say, "I'm going mad, aren't I? It's finally happened."

"Why on earth would you think that?" the Time Lord asked patiently. He was one of the few who knew the Alterran's morbid fear of totally losing control of his volatile temper and cross­ing over into madness. He also knew that this was not the case.

"Because—" Jason stopped, afraid the Doctor would only confirm his fears rather than dispel them. He also knew the Doctor would continue to press until he told him what he meant. Taking a deep breath, he said, "There's a voice. Inside my head. _And it isn't mine_." Paus­ing, he said firmly, "Now if that isn't crazy, what is it?"

The Doctor's eyes were sparkling, but he did not allow his excitement to come through in his voice. With a ghost of a smile on his face, he replied, "It's Ormril."

Jason did not know if he should be delighted or appalled. "Ormril!" he gasped. "Inside _my_ head? How?"

"I don't know yet," the Doctor admitted. "But it's obvious he's been slowly manipulating your emotions. Twisting them to the point where you're not thinking rationally."

"But…how? How did you know?"

"I didn't. Not about you, anyway. It's a logical assumption, though, don't you think?"

"What do you mean not about me? Who did you—?" The King's eyes grew wide. "Juris! You thought it was Juris!"

"My dear Jason," the Time Lord sighed, "it _is_ Juris."


	15. Just Leave The Window Open

**Chapter Fifteen**

**Leave Just The Window Open**

The Doctor had explained to his appalled Alterran friend that he discov­ered Turlough in the con­sole room trying to get all the systems back on-line, which he had almost succeeded in doing. Together, they were able to get all the safety systems up and run­ning. While they were doing this, Turlough told him how Asta had cornered him just after the Time Lord's other self had been kidnapped. She had poured out her suspicions concerning the Crown Prince, com­pletely over­whelming the young man. Not knowing what else to do, he told everything to the Doctor, who had been developing some rather nasty suspicions of his own.

"Turlough mentioned your theory about Kamelion being the window Ormril was using," the Doctor said, "so I decided to make it so."

By this time Jason was very close to being completely lost and sat down on a stool, a hand to his head. "Doctor, please, my head is already spinning," he sighed helplessly, only to be waved to silence.

"Just bear with me," came the patient reply. The Doctor went on to explain that, once the safety systems were up and running, he and Turlough were able to make Kamelion Ormril's only way in or out of the TARDIS. With this done, they were ready to test Asta's theory about Juris.

"Just before I came down," the Doctor informed, "I arranged the test with Turlough. I was to make sure you didn't go back before we were certain one way or the other."

The King was justifiably puzzled. "Why?"

"I didn't want to upset you," the Doctor replied, causing his friend to laugh in spite of him­self.

"With the window closed and the connection broken, I was hoping Juris would be able to purge himself of any alien influence. What I hadn't bargained on was your being under the same influence." Pausing, the Doctor remarked thoughtfully, "What I don't understand is how Ormril got to you both after you'd left Lumenarus IV."

Jason caught his breath, his eyes wide. "But I didn't leave! Not right away. I had to stay for the official inquiry. And Juris—" His voice rose in pitch as he went on to say, "Doctor, Asta's training took longer than Juris's did. He came back while she was finishing up on Gallifrey."

"What! He was _there? With_ you?" The Doctor was appalled.

"He had to finish his thesis. That's why he was there in the first place, remember? And when all this business with Ormril—"

"Jason, don't you realize—?"

The Alterran held up his hands. "I know, I know. I'm not just an idiot. I'm a Royal idiot. That _had_ to be when Ormril got to us. After all, we both were on that wretched mind probe, now weren't we? He'd've had our brain patterns at his fingertips."

The Doctor's face darkened considerably. The situation was worse than he feared.

"It's all so clear to me now," the King sighed, growing more irritated with himself by the min­ute. "Why couldn't I see it?"

"Why couldn't I? After all, I'm the imbecile who told him he couldn't drive a wedge be­tween us. I'd say he did a pretty good job of it this time, wouldn't you?"

Jason replied without hesitation, "No. Your still being alive proves that. And he won't get back into my head to have another go, either."

"You'd better make doubly sure," the Time Lord instructed. "Neither Asta nor I can return until Kamelion is reconnected."

Drawing a deep breath, King Jason closed his eyes and concentrated for several minutes. When at last he opened his now clear and sparkling eyes, he asked, "Alright, now what?"

"Now—we plan," the Doctor replied succinctly. "You do realize, of course, that even if Asta does succeed, Ormril will most assuredly take another crack at me."

"What?"

"But he's too overconfident. Even after all this time, he still thinks he can drive an Alterran to kill."

Jason was aghast. "Doctor, how can you be so calm? Don't you realize—?" He cut himself of as a ghost of a smile passed across his friend's face. The Alterran's eyes narrowed suspi­ciously. "I know that look. You've already planned something, haven't you?"

The Doctor broke into a broad smile, his eyes sparkling. "It's good to have you back, Jason," he grinned, causing the King to do something he had not done since his last meeting with the Doctor—blush vividly, which caused the Time Lord to grin all the more.

"Now, as I see it," the Doctor said seriously, "it's Round One to Ormril, because botched or not, he still managed to kidnap me. And Round Two is up to Asta."

"And if she succeeds, it's Round Three to us, I suppose?" Jason injected.

"Ye-es," the Doctor said mysteriously. "And we need to talk about that."


	16. A Friend Out Of Time

**Chapter Sixteen**

**A Friend Out Of Time**

Across the spatial rift, and oblivious to the true nature of his captivity, the Doctor was sitting with his back against the wall of his sealed prison, absently watching the extraordinary colors as they swirled and flowed along the interior surfaces. After examining every square inch of the room, he had found no sign of an exit. He had, however, found that while initially the walls felt solid, they became semisolid when pressure was applied, thus allowing his hand to penetrate. This caused him to hope that he might be able to actually pass through the wall to escape. But after sink­ing his arm into the substance all the way up to his shoulder, he found nothing but more wall be­yond and abandoned the idea. The last thing he wanted was to get himself trapped in a block of material that might very well solidify without warning.

Eventually the Doctor resigned himself to the fact that he was good and properly trapped, and if he were ever going to get out it would have to be with outside help.

Unbeknownst to the Doctor, outside help was already on the way in the form of a cloud of smoke. After crossing the rift, Asta had been slightly disoriented and took a moment to recover. She then discovered, to her joy, that her use of the mental energies of the Doctor's other self had kept her free of Ormril's control, something she had been uncertain of, but had been unwilling to share least the Time Lord refuse to help her. Within minutes she had located the sealed cube containing the captive life force while at the same time successfully avoiding an encounter with her former Master.

Within the cube, the Doctor sat up with a start when he became aware of a powerful alien presence moving closer. Thinking his captor was returning to finish him off, he glanced nerv­ously around the empty room, stiffening visibly when a cloud of smoke suddenly rose out of the floor just short distance in front of him.

"Don't be afraid, Doctor," Asta said in a quiet, soothing tone. "I'm not here to hurt you. I'm here to help."

Although startled by both the feminine voice and the gentleness of the tone, the Doctor eyed the entity suspiciously. "And who are you?"

"I'm a friend of yours."

"Indeed? You'll forgive my impertinence, but I think I'd remember having a cloud of smoke as a friend."

Asta responded with a disarming girlish giggle. "Indeed you shall, Doctor, but I'm a friend from your future. I was party to the event that's the cause of your present situation."

"My fut—?" The Doctor's eyes widened. "Do you mean my own personal future?"

"Yes. The one who kidnapped you will one day be your enemy. He's foolish enough to be­lieve that by killing you before you meet, he'll be able to succeed in the plan that you caused to fail," Asta explained.

"And this is to take place in my recent future?"

Asta stopped herself from replying, saying instead, "I can't tell you that. As a Time Lord, you must understand that there is much I can't tell you. Not without altering what is to come. Even to tell you my name would have an affect."

The Doctor sighed heavily and nodded, mentally kicking himself for letting his curiosity get the better of him. His own personal future was one of the few space/time events closed to him. The least little slip could alter its course with devastating results. "Can you—?" He stopped be­fore finally asking, "My present. Can you tell me of that?"

"Yes."

"My companion. Is he alright?"

"Yes. He's safe and unharmed, Doctor. It's you who's the target, not him." The Time Lord's concerned expression did not change and his rescuer added, "He's very worried about you."

"He's not the only one," the Doctor muttered darkly.

Asta could sense her former Master close by and spoke in an urgent tone. "Doctor, there isn't much time so, please, listen. This place is outside your own reality. It's an illusion created by conscious mental energy—"

"You mean, like a dreamscape?"

Asta hesitated. The workings of her old dimension were a thousand times more complicated than this, but she had no time to explain. "It's similar in that it doesn't adhere to the conventional laws of your universe."

"Of course, it's controlled by thought!" the Doctor gasped. "That's why I stopped falling."

"Doctor, please! There isn't time!" Asta scolded sharply. "Your TARDIS was dragged for­ward through your time stream creating a temporal ripple. It caused you to overlap with one of your other selves. It was he who enabled me to find you."

The Doctor opened his mouth, only to close it again. This was almost too much even for him to take in. A rumble of thunder suddenly shook the room, increasing in intensity to the point where it seemed the enclosure would shake itself apart. Grateful he was already on the floor, the Doctor said mildly, "Thunderstorm or earthquake? Which was it?"

"Neither. _He_ is coming."

The Doctor was immediately on his feet. "Are you sure?"

Asta ignored the inquiry. "Doctor, you must return to your own time without delay."

"I assume you know how I'm to do that?" he said acidly, indicating his shackles. "I'm not exactly in a position to run, now am I?"

"There's no time to explain, so you'll have to trust me. I can return you to your own uni­verse, but you must initiate the contact first."

The Doctor gave her a skeptical look. "Just like that? And then what? Do I disappear in a puff of smoke?"

His rescuer heaved an exasperated sigh. "You're not in a position to argue, either. Now do you want to get out of here or not?"

The Time Lord's dubious expression did not change. Too much had happened to him since his arrival in this strange place for him to trust anyone out of hand. How could he be certain it was not just another ploy by his captor to gain whatever it was he wanted from him?

"I was told," Asta said quickly, "that if you were hesitant, I should tell you 'Brave heart,' and you would understand its meaning."

With a knowing smile, the Doctor replied, "I do," the message having erased the distrustful look from his face. How many times had he said those very words to Tegan when she was hesi­tant or afraid? Had Turlough told his rescuer to say this?

Before the Doctor could inquire further, Ormril returned in what his prisoner considered an overly dramatic manner. There was a clap of thunder and the far wall vanished. The colors out­side flared brilliantly and then moved away as the dark spot returned on the horizon.

"So! My servant returns at last. Excellent," Ormril boomed delightedly. "It brings me what I need to know. Which means I can dispose of you, Time Lord."

The chains at the Doctor's hands and feet suddenly came to life, dragging him back and pin­ning him helplessly against the wall.

Horrified, the Doctor gave the cloud of smoke a stricken look, thinking himself the victim of an elaborate, if cruel, trick. To his immense relief, the entity put herself between him and his captor, his shackles vanish­ing the same instant.

"I no longer serve you!" Asta snarled forcefully. "And I will not allow you to harm the Doctor."

"_You_ will not allow?" Ormril exclaimed. "You will not allow! I am your Master!" He then exploded into a fit of the same bombastic prattle the Doctor had grown weary of.

Seizing the opportunity, Asta moved deeper into the room. In spite of himself the Doctor stiff­ened visibly, pressing himself harder against the wall as the cloud suddenly bore down on him. He was keenly aware of the fact that he was still trapped in the room, and caught his breath when the cloud of smoke abruptly engulfed him.


	17. Now, Doctor!

**Chapter Seventeen**

"**Now, Doctor."**

The Doctor wasn't sure what he was expecting when the cloud completely enveloped, him but he knew it was not the feeling of absolute benevo­lence he experienced instantly. Beyond a shadow of a doubt he knew this being meant him no harm.

"Now, Doctor," Asta commanded, bringing the Time Lord out of his daze. "Go now while he's distracted. I don't know how long the window to your universe will stay open."

For the first time since his capture, the Doctor was reluctant to leave. "I look forward to the time when we actually meet."

"Just remember, I'm never more than a thought away," his rescuer replied cryptically. "Now, _please_, _go!"_

The Doctor took a deep breath and closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind to the other self he hoped would be there. To his astonishment, he was, the contact clear and strong. A split second later he was in the midst of the chaos that was the inter-dimensional fissure. The hole in the fabric of Time he had seen in his dream. He struggled desperately to ride out the tempest, but as before the energies within the rift proved too powerful for him and he lost consciousness.

"How dare you!" Ormril raged as the Time Lord vanished. "I command you to return him to me."

"No," Asta said defiantly. "I've sent the Doctor back so he can be returned to his proper place in time. You can't change history. That would transgress the first Law of Time."

"What would _you_ know of it? You're an extension of my will, nothing more."

"That's where you're wrong. I'm my own person now. Lady Asta, ward to the King of Tel-Shye."

"The King of Tel-Shye," her former Master jeered, practically spitting out the name. "He's my servant, the weak-minded fool. It was by his hand you were returned to me. And by his hand the Doctor's future self was de­stroyed."

"I don't believe you!"

The self-proclaimed deity laughed. "The Doctor thought he could stop me by closing off the way to his TARDIS. But it was already too late."

"How?"

A monitor screen suddenly appeared from nowhere, replaying the confrontation in Jason's old room. There was, however, one major change. Since the window had closed just as Jason came to his senses, Ormril did not know the outcome and had created his own ending, this being the Doctor's death.

Asta was appalled. "It's a lie! Jason isn't a murderer!"

"He is now," Ormril stated flatly. His voice was suddenly deadly serious, "Enough of this. You will obey my commands or suffer the consequences."

The cloud of smoke was surrounded by the same red glow that had inflicted so much pain upon the Doctor, yet Asta remained completely unaffected. "Child's play," she remarked blandly. "Have you forgotten already that it was _I_ who controlled all the power here? You're just an ama­teur."

"Am I?" Ormril snarled. "I managed to get your beloved King to steer you to Holdyan, didn't I?"

Asta knew this to be true even without having to verify it, suddenly understanding the feel­ings of foreboding she had felt in the ship. Then the Doctor and Jason's observations about no life on the planet's surface returned to mind. That would all fit if it really were Holdyan. It was not just any planet; it was Ormril's home world, the first of dozens that she, as his slave, had de­stroyed.

_No, not destroyed_, she thought, correcting herself. _Sucked the life out of_. That's what she had done, absorbed the life force of every living creature. And it was what Ormril would do if he were allowed to escape. Right then and there she swore to herself that she would _never_ allow that to happen, even if it cost her her own life.

* * *

Inside the TARDIS, the visibly changed Juris was the only one with Asta's comatose form, the others being in the adjoining room waiting for some sign of success.

"It's been ages," Ace moaned impatiently. "How will we know if it's worked or not?"

"_We_ won't," Jason replied darkly. "Only you and Turlough will know. If this fails, the rest of us will simply cease to exist."

Ace exchanged a horrified look with Turlough before turning to her Doctor, who was sitting in the corner of the room lazily leaning back against the wall and apparently unconcerned by the fact that he might simply vanish from existence at any moment. A small cry suddenly escaped him and he sat bolt upright, freezing like a statue, his wide eyes glazing over.

"Doc—" Ace broke off when Jason raised a hand. He went cautiously over to the motionless Time Lord, getting down on one knee and watching him closely, making certain the whole time not to touch him.

After a few very long seconds, the Doctor took a deep breath and came out of his trance a great deal calmer than the first time. Blinking several times to focus, he looked down into the King's worried face and smiled. "Contact."


	18. Am I Back?

**Chapter Eighteen**

**Am I Back?**

Ace's Doctor had no sooner spoken than his unconscious other self took a deep breath and moaned softly, struggling to return to his senses.

"Turlough!" Jason snapped suddenly, pointing to the chair at the bedside. "The rest of you, out!"

Taking up his position, Turlough smiled relievedly when his Doctor's eyes fluttered open. With difficulty they focused on the young man's face. "Turlough...?" the Time Lord said weakly. "I made it back."

His companion feigned surprise. "Back? You haven't been anywhere."

"Of course I have."

Turlough smiled inwardly before saying, "Doctor, you haven't been out of bed for days. You've been ill. Don't you remember?"

"Have I?" The Time Lord tried to sit up only to find he had almost no strength. "I believe you," he muttered darkly.

After being shooed from the room, the others stood listening to this exchange in the doorway to the adjoining room. Taking his cue, King Jason gave Ace's Doctor a knowing look and then transmuted into the Crown Prince he had once been. Despite the fact that she had been warned about this, Ace let out a squeak of surprise before whispering her approval to the disguised mon­arch.

Drawing a deep breath, Jason straightened and strode through the door. "How's he doing to­day, Tur—?" Stopping in mid-stride, he broke into a delighted smile. "Well, good morning, Doctor!" he chirped brightly. "Welcome back to the land of the living. You had me worried there for a while."

"Jason?" the Time Lord said in bewilderment. "How did you get here?"

_"Me?"_ the Alterran exclaimed, throwing a disgusted look in Turlough direction. "Well, I like that. You're not gone but two months, and then out of the blue you turn up on my doorstep prac­tically at death's door."

"Two months? Are you sure?"

"Am _I_ sure? Oh, really, Doctor. I may not be a Time Lord, but I can read a calendar," Jason chided mildly.

The Doctor blinked up at his old friend. "At death's door?"

"Close enough to ring the bell," the Alterran replied soberly. "You had poor Turlough scared half to death, getting sick so fast. You were delirious by the time I got to you. You kept going on about not being safe outside the TARDIS. I was afraid to even move you out of this room."

"Are we on Tel-Shye, then?"

Turlough felt it was his turn to assist in the cover up and said, "You gave me the coordinates yourself, Doctor, don't you remember?"

The Doctor scowled, shaking his head. "No, I don't. Not any of it."

"I'm not surprised," Jason said mildly. "You've been pretty out of it the last few days."

The Doctor looked from one to the other, struggling to reconcile what he was being told with what he felt had been a real experience. He was absolutely certain he had been abducted and de­cided that his friends' ignorance was due solely to the intervention of the smoky friend from the future.

"Was I really as bad as all that?" he asked innocently.

Jason smiled broadly. "Well, at least you didn't turn green and destroy the room the way I did when I had Draconian Flu."

The Doctor groaned at this memory, as did his other self in the next room.

"Anyway, the important thing is, you're out of danger now. In fact, I was only waiting for you to wake up properly before I left you in Turlough's excellent care. I've made up the medica­tion you'll need. Now all you have to do is take it and rest. You'll be back on your feet in no time."

"You're leaving?" the Doctor asked, a disappointed tone creeping into his voice.

"Doctor, I've already been here longer than I'd intended. And that's only because it was _you_. I still have a wedding to plan."

The Time Lord moaned again. "Oh, yes. I'd forgotten about that, too."

Turlough sat watching the Alterran's performance in awe, amazed not only at how much Jason remembered of their last encounter, but also at the difference between the carefree Prince of the past and the serious King of the present.

"Well, I'd better go before I get all worked up over nothing again," the Prince of the past was saying.

"I really _had_ intended on coming back, Jason," the Doctor admitted somewhat guiltily. "Just…not quite this soon."

"I'll look for you in my future, then," Jason said with a bittersweet smile, adding, "Surprise me. Show up when I actually expect you, like, at my wedding, for example."

The Doctor smiled weakly. Recalling Asta's words, he said, "I'm never more than a thought away." Then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.

The Alterran looked thoughtfully down at his sleeping friend, a knowing smile coming to his face. Once he was certain the Time Lord was fully asleep, he injected him with a mild sedative. "That should keep him asleep and stable until we can get him back where he belongs," he said to the visibly relieved Turlough.

"Isn't it strange?" Ace's Doctor said as he came in from the next room. "A moment ago, I re­membered your being here. And just now, I remembered the dream."

"The dream that wasn't," Jason stated firmly, throwing a meaningful glance in Turlough's direc­tion.

The Doctor nodded absently as the memories unfolded in his mind like the pedals of a flower. "The irony in all this is that I always thought you and Turlough didn't realize that I'd been kidnapped."

"You always thought…" the monarch's voice trailed off and he laughed, returning to his older self at the same time. "You always said time would tell, Doctor, and now it finally has."

"Ye-es, it has, hasn't it?"

It wasn't so much the words as the tone that caught everyone's attention.

"What is it?" Turlough asked, being surprised when the response was for him to disconnect Kamelion. Ges­turing toward the next room, he was about to point out that Lady Asta had yet to return.

"Don't worry, it's only temporary," the Doctor explained. A knowing smile came to his face as Asta's words, the very words his other self had just repeated, echoed through his mind. Turn­ing to the equally perplexed Jason, he informed mysteriously, "I've just remembered something else, but I can't explain until I'm sure you-know-who can't hear us."


	19. Round Three

**Chapter Nineteen**

**Round Three**

As soon as Asta was certain the Doctor's life force had been safely restored, she abandoned her power struggle with her former Master and returned to the opening of the dimensional fissure, intent on breaking Ormril's hold over her Alterran benefactors. To her delight, she found that not only had this already been done, but Ace's Doctor was also still very much alive.

"I knew he was lying," she hissed angrily.

Asta watched the occupants of the TARDIS as she prepared to return. It was then that she had the same thought as the Doctor. If she left now, Ormril would simply try to kill the Time Lord at another point in time and they would be right back where they were now.

Scanning the area to see if Ormril had found her yet, Asta discovered something even more startling about the alternate dimension, something that would solve everything. If only she could warn the Doctor, but he had temporarily closed the window to the TARDIS during her contemplations. She sus­pected he had done this to allow his other self time to stabilize before subjecting him to the influ­ence of the open dimensional fissure again. The big question was, would she be able to make contact with him when the window re­opened?

* * *

After Kamelion was reconnected, the Doctor and Jason positioned themselves on the farthest side of the room containing Asta's inert form. Juris was at her side while Ace and Turlough were relegated to the safely in the next room.

Jason had expected Asta to return as soon as the window was reopened. When this did not happen, he threw a questioning in the Doctor's direction, seeing him leaning against the wall, apparently unconcerned by the delay. In fact, he looked like he was asleep.

Nearly half an hour passed after the window was reopened before Asta finally drew a sharp breath and stirred, slowly opening her eyes. She looked up at Prince Juris and he smiled broadly. "Thank goodness," he sighed delightedly, "I was afraid you'd been trapped forever."

The young woman sat up slowly, an evil smile coming to her face. "You don't know the mean­ing of the word fear, boy." This cold and threatening reply was spoken, not in Asta's light voice but in the deep, malevolent tones belonging to Ormril. Taking the face of the Crown Prince in his hands, he said coldly, "Die, boy. Be the first of millions to fall at the hands of Ormril."

To the astonishment of the evil being, the Prince did not die, nor did he react with fear. In­stead, his face lost all expression and seemed to turn to stone. He took the small, delicate hands in an iron grip, forcefully pulling them away.

"You've lose, Ormril," the Doctor said calmly from his place across the room.

"No!" Ormril gasped. "This is impossible! I saw you die!"

"By _my_ hand?" King Jason asked angrily. "You couldn't get me to kill my son. How did you expect me to kill the Doctor?"

"And speaking of Prince Juris," the Doctor injected mildly, "we took the precaution of replac­ing him with Kamelion. He's the android you've been using as your entry window. He's not organic so he has no life force for you to steal."

"No!" Ormril roared, struggling in vain against Kamelion's powerful hands.

"You've lost," the Doctor announced triumphantly. "I have defeated you—_again._ Jason has defeated you—_again_. Now you're in _our_ dimension, and _we_ control _you!_"

Ormril watched in horror as, with a dramatic flourish, the Time Lord pulled the cable con­nect­ing Kamelion into the computer from its socket, closing the window and cutting off his only means of escape. At the same time, the Kamelion/Prince changed, returning to its true ap­pear­ance as a silver robot.

"How does it feel knowing all your plans were thwarted by a shape shifting hunk of metal and plastic?" the Doctor taunted.

"You forget, Time Lord," the impostor snarled back, an evil smile on his face. "In this body, I too can change." So saying, he started to transmute.

The same instant, Jason yelled, "Now!" and Kamelion sent a jolt of power through the deli­cate hands he still held, triggering a misfire. The normal shimmering caused by mo­lecular transmutation immediately changed into a static-like fizzle. Ormril screamed in agony as the molecular change went completely out of control.

Kamelion released his grip, backing away from the wildly thrashing form the same instant Jason dove at the bed, stabbing a needle into one of the flailing extremities and injecting a mas­sive dose of a powerful bonding agent.

Another scream exploded from the distorted form. A split-second later, it went completely rigid and then crystal­lized into a glittering, and harmless, block of crystals.

It wasn't until Ormril was safely crystallized that Jason realized he was holding his breath and he exhaled. Then he felt completely exhausted and sagged against the bed, sinking slowly to the floor. "You're trapped for good now, Ormril," he stated categorically before burying his head in his arms.

After a momentary silence, Kamelion calmly asked, "Did I serve you well, Doctor?"

A chill ran down the Time Lord's spine as he looked over at the android, recalling how he had been forced to destroy it. "Yes, Kamelion, you did very well. Thank-you. Now if you'll please look after Ace and Turlough in the next room…"

The robot inclined its head and left, bowing slightly to the real Prince Juris as he came in from the next room. The Doctor's companions followed him in a moment later.

"Is she—I mean, he—dead?" Ace asked hesitantly.

King Jason looked up, his face suddenly old and haggard, seeming to have aged twenty years in twenty seconds. He shook his head, saying softly, "No, he's just suspended. Until the crystals are restored—or destroyed—he's alive, but trapped. Again."

"And what of Asta, Father?" Juris demanded accusingly. "What of her? Destroy those, and she's trapped, too."

"I don't know, Juris. I just don't know. I wish I did," Jason said wearily, burying his head in his arms again.

His son was incredulous. "You mean you don't care! Why don't you just admit it?"

"Alright, that's enough!" the Doctor snapped impatiently. "You're not under anyone's con­trol any longer, so you can stop acting like a child."

The unexpected reproof left the Alterran Prince speechless. He stared open mouthed at the Time Lord before turning to his father.

"He's right," Jason agreed, sitting back on the floor. "It's high time we both stopped acting like children."

"But, Father…" Juris whimpered. "What about Asta?"

It was the Doctor who replied. "You'll have to give me a few minutes," he said, a knowing smile on his face, "but I think I can answer that for you." So saying, he vanished into the next room, ushering his companions out before him.

Jason watched the door close and then threw a knowing look over to his mystified son, who had not as yet realized they had been purposely left on their own. "Juris, we need to talk," the King said at last.

* * *

At the entrance to the alternate dimension, Asta watched in satisfaction as Ormril was master­fully maneuvered into captivity. When the Doctor closed the way to the TARDIS a second time, she had to fight to keep herself from panicking. She knew exact what he was doing.

When the entry was initially reopened, she had been surprised at how quickly she had been able to make contact with him, only to learn that he was also attempting to make contact with her to tell her what he was planning. She was inwardly amused at his reassurances that he had no intention of abandoning her. She, in turn, told him of her own startling discovery. The al­ternate dimension was disinte­grating rapidly and was very close to the point of collapse.


	20. Breaking Free

**Chapter Twenty**

**Breaking Free**

The Doctor had been gone considerably longer than a few minutes when the crystals on the bed started to glow. Jason and his son stared at them in horror. "He's breaking free," the monarch said in a horrified whisper. He dashed to the door, almost colliding with the Doctor as he came back into the room. "Doctor! Ormril's breaking free!"

"That would be impossible," the Time Lord replied calmly. "Ormril has gone to his own de­struction."

The Doctor's words hung like fog in the air.

Jason blinked. "What?"

"I said…"

"What are you talking about?" Jason demanded finally. "He's just suspended. Trapped be­tween reality and oblivion. I've been there, remember?"

"I do recall the incident," the Time Lord replied acidly. He recalled the incident quite clearly, as it was he who had been the cause of the Alterran's brief crystallized existence. "But you haven't been across the rift, now, have you?" he chal­lenged. He looked at the equally baffled Prince Juris. "It's very different there, isn't it, Juris? Thought becomes reality, does it not?"

Juris nodded slowly, recalling his lengthy captivity with a shudder.

"A reality controlled, not by Ormril, but by…"

"Asta!" the Prince gasped, catching on at last. "She's still free of him?"

"Of course she is," the Doctor replied in an almost condescending tone. He went on to reveal his telepathic conversation, explaining how Asta had been able to contact him from across the rift. Apparently this was made easier be­cause he had been the one to send her in. "I told her what we had planned, and she did her part to get Ormril here so we could trap him."

The King was watching the glowing crystals with mounting trepidation. "That still doesn't explain what you just said about Ormril. Or how you're so sure he's not the one breaking free."

"I'll get to that," the Time Lord said infuriatingly, going on to tell of Asta's startling discov­ery that Ormril's universe was on the point of collapse. The energy backlash that had been trig­gered by his defeat at Rikeon apparently had severely weakened the boundaries. Now, instead of just a few fissures separating the dimensions, there were several thousand, all of which were ex­tremely unstable.

"According to Asta," the Doctor informed, "the more Ormril reached into the space/time contin­uum, the more unstable energy he pulled into his own dimension, accelerating the rate of deterioration. If he had simply waited, the damage would've repaired itself. But Ormril is not a patient man." With a strange half-smile, he said, "So Asta came up with a plan for his return—"

"Return?" the King interrupted. "Return where? Ormril is trapped here. Suspended."

"With all that power at his command? Hardly," the Time Lord snorted. "I reopened the win­dow and Asta made sure he discovered the escape route."

By this time the crystals had transformed themselves into a semi-globular form and Jason gave them a dubious look. "You're sure of that, are you?" he asked fearfully.

"Quite sure," the Doctor said in a level tone. "Asta set a second trap at the other end. She made sure the energy he used to return would be enough to overload the system. In short, Ormril would destroy himself."

The stunned silence that followed was broken by a soft moan from the bed. All eyes turned to see the form changing into a semi-humanoid figure.

"It's up to you now, Healer Jason," the Doctor said gently. "You're the only one here with the skills to—"

"No," Jason replied, shaking his head. "Asta already has my knowledge. And more than enough power to restore herself without any help from me."

"What!" Juris gasped in disbelief. "Father, we've just gone through all that, and now you're jumping to conclusions again."

"Not this time," his father said quietly, looking down at his hands. "This I know for a fact."

The words were scarcely out of his mouth when Asta fully returned to her human form. She opened her eyes to see Jason standing over her; his hand outstretched invitingly, an odd expres­sion on his face. Although uncertain, she accepted the hand and sat up slowly, saying nothing as the Healer made certain the transformation had been successful.

After a minute, Jason gave a satisfied grunt and looked into his ward's face. She immediately looked away. The reason for this was so obvious it caused the King to experience more than just a twinge of guilt. "You don't have to avoid me anymore, my dear Asta," King Jason said softly, taking her by the hands. "I was wrong and I'm truly sorry."

Asta looked up sharply, her mouth falling open. "But…I don't understand…" she said, study­ing the King's face in bewilderment. "I feel anger and betrayal. I thought it was from you."

"Me? Why on earth would I feel betrayed?"

"Because she lied to us," Prince Juris announced bitterly. "This never would've happened if she hadn't hidden her powers."

His father's head snapped around, his face clouding with anger when he saw his son's ex­pres­sion. "Be silent, I command it!" he thundered, rising to his feet. His casual clothes sud­denly changed to those of regal splendor as he spoke, a clear signal he was speaking strictly as King of Tel-Shye. "How dare you! You speak words of forgiveness, tolerance, understanding. And now you _dare_ accuse her! If anyone is at fault here, I am." Throwing the Doctor a knowing look, he said, "A fine guardian _I_ turned out to be."

"But…Father…" Juris stammered.

"But nothing!" the King snapped. Turning to the Doctor, he said in a normal tone, "I betrayed you too, Doctor, and for that I cannot apologize enough. As always, you saw everything ten times clearer than I did."

The Time Lord's eyes flickered, a ghost of a smile passing across his face. He inclined his head, saying noth­ing.

Uncertain as to her status, Asta rose to her feet, thinking she might as well confront the King, too. He certainly seemed in the mood for it. "How did you know?" she wanted to know.

Jason turned to her, his anger having run its course. "Know what?" he asked calmly.

"About me. My powers. I never gave any indication or admitted to anything. But you still knew. How?"

Jason smiled knowingly and held out a hand. "All I had to do was touch you. Power of that magnitude is impossible to conceal, even in human form."

"But I _did_ conceal it. From everyone but you, apparently."

"True. And as your guardian, that's all that should've concerned me. As long as you kept them under control, it shouldn't have mattered that you're in the First Circle."

Prince Juris gave a disgusted grunt. "Oh, really, Father. The First Circle? Don't be absurd."

Asta was baffled. "The First Circle?"

"It's an ancient term," the King informed, "used to describe those rare few who can take on another form without diminishing or losing the powers of their true selves."

"There hasn't been evidence of a First Circler in millennia," Juris objected forcefully.

Jason raised an eyebrow. "And how would you know that? Those in the First Circle aren't known to advertise it, now are they?"

"Father, you don't really believe there's anyone alive today who can do that, do you?" the Prince said in a condescending tone.

Jason exchanged a knowing look with the Doctor before saying calmly, "As a matter of fact I do, Juris. I happen to be in the First Circle." The look of blank astonishment he received made him roll his eyes and moan in disbelief. "Oh, Juris, you have the same cautious spirit as your mother. You've probably never even tried, have you?"

"What makes you think I could...?"

"Because, my dear child," his father sighed, "you may've been lucky enough to've inherited more than just pig-headedness from me."


	21. Getting On With The Past

**Chapter Twenty-One**

**Getting On With The Past**

While Jason and Turlough returned the sedated Doctor to his own room, Ace's Doctor tackled the difficult job of separating the TARDIS from itself. It turned out to be more difficult than he expected. Several anomalies popped up in his calculations the moment he tried to demateri­alize.

Asta volunteered to help, since the powers she possessed were of the same nature as those used to pull the time machine off course. Unfortunately, there was not much she could do until the Doctor entered his newest calculations.

Ace seized the opportunity to press Lady Asta for an explanation of what, exactly, had hap­pened while she was in the alternate dimension and to Ormril after he was crystallized. Within a few minutes it was obvious Ace still had no clue what Asta was talking about.

"Alright," Ace said slowly, attempting to get everything straight in her head, "I understand about telepathy and how you could talk to the Doctor. And I understand about trapping Ormril. What I don't understand is how he destroyed himself when he went back."

Lady Asta drew a deep breath, exchanging a long-suffering look with the sympathetic Time Lord. He knew just how she felt, which was why he tried to avoid explaining anything if he could get away with it. "To put it simply," Asta began slowly, "I made his universe too small for him. When he went back, he couldn't squeeze in and it split at the seams."

"Like putting on a space suit and having it fall apart," Juris said helpfully.

"Pop goes the spaceman," King Jason injected darkly as he and Turlough came through the inner door. "Very nasty."

His ward lowered her eyes, only to look up sharply when the King snapped, "Now don't start that again! Good riddance to him. Maybe now we can finally stop looking over our shoulders and get on with our lives." Throwing a meaningful glance in the Doctor's direction, he added sharply, "If the TARDIS ever gets separated from itself, that is."

The Doctor gave him a fierce reproving look, muttering something vaguely about temporal continuity before returning his full attention to the console.

Jason chuckled and turned to Turlough, drawing him aside and further compli­cating his life. "Turlough, you realize what happened here is out of synch with more than just the Doctor's timeline, don't you?" he asked seriously.

"Yes, I know," the young man sighed wearily. "I'm not to let the Doctor know what really happened. We've been over all that."

"No, that's not what I mean. Once you've been returned to your proper place in time, you'll be re-entering _my_ past. And you can't tell _me,_ either."

Turlough groaned and rolled his eyes. _Why couldn't anything involving the Doctor be sim­ple?_ "And I suppose you can't tell me anything about it either, can you?"

The Alterran shook his head. "Only that I'm pretty sure you'll be dropping straight into my past." Pausing, he added, "It does explain a lot, though. I could never understand how you could be so resolute—"

"Ah, ah, no hints!" the Doctor's voice broke in sharply. He crossed to the King, saying, "I won­dered if you'd noticed the anomalies in relation to your own timeline."

"I knew the minute Turlough said he'd left me on Tel-Shye," Jason replied.

Turlough listened to this exchange with growing irritation. It was bad enough when he could ­not keep up in the normal course of things, but to be deliberately left out was intolerable. "Is the TARDIS ready so I can go, Doctor?" he asked pointedly. "We _were_ trying to get _your_ timeline straightened out, weren't we?"

"Yes, yes," the Time Lord replied, waving a hand in the air. "You're quite right. It's time you got on with the past."

Throwing the Alterran a quick sideways glance, Turlough ventured, "Am I really going to drop into Jason's past?"

The Doctor paused a moment to consider. "Almost straight in, actually," he informed. "So the caution holds. You mustn't reveal anything you've seen her to anyone—especially me!" Turning, he strode over to the console, activating the scanner to reveal a second police box. "I've managed to get the TARDIS separated. That one's yours. I've programmed it to dematerialize as soon as you're inside."

"So where are you sending me, anyway?" Turlough wanted to know.

The Doctor flashed an impish grin. "You'll just have to wait and see."

* * *

This story is followed by Part 3 - "The New Argonauts" -- Time Line One - The 5th Doctor and Turlough

If you would like to know when I begin posting this or any other story, just set up an author alert and you will be emailed as chapters are added. To do this, go to the Alerts section on your main user page, click on Author Alerts at the top and enter Margaret Price or my user ID 827930.

* * *

The Transmutation Of Time -Part Two© 2003 -- A Hole In Time © 1993 Margaret Price is an original work written for the enjoyment of Doctor Who fans everywhere. No copyright infringement is intended. 

Original series broadcast on the BBC. Format © BBC 1963

Doctor Who and Tardis are trademarks of the BBC.

The story and all other original characters are © Margaret Price


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